Data Specialist

About the Position:

In this position, you will work closely with Extension’s Institute Directors and Extension’s Chief Diversity Officer to determine the scope and priorities of institutional data analyzes that advance and support our programmatic goals, and that support Extension’s priorities and goals for inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA). The Data Specialist will:

• Support Extensions’ educational programs by improving and broadening their understanding of persistent and emerging educational needs based on the analysis of publicly available data sets (Federal, state, etc.) that include socio-demographic variables, such as data from the US census bureau.
• Conduct data analyses that support programmatic goals, and conduct analyses that support educational outcomes in a variety of topic areas (ranging from agriculture, natural resources, human development & relationships, health & well-being, community development, to youth development).
• Conduct analyses related to Extension’s current and emerging audiences; and analyses related to our current efforts to integrate all aspects of our Division’s work with strong IDEA principles and practices. This includes support of Extension’s understanding and use of socio-demographic data to improve goals, strategies, and approaches related to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access.
• Explore, assess, prepare, integrate, analyze, and make accessible varying and complex data sources that are relevant to Extension’s outreach work.

The ideal candidate has the ability to independently manage and complete data projects based on broad guidance from stakeholders with limited technical and/or subject matter expertise, and excels at independently engaging with stakeholders at all stages of a data project. The ideal candidate has familiarity of various openly available demographic datasets and is familiar with curating openly accessible data sources in service of answering emergent questions. The ideal candidate has the demonstrated ability to make connections between different datasets to answer complex questions, and has the demonstrated ability to provide actionable information to non-technical audiences who work in the areas of community outreach and education.

The Division of Extension has a deep and profound commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity, believing that these values are foundational elements to eliminate disparities and expanding access for all. As Extension, we acknowledge the need for strategic and coordinated actions that help us form a more equitable, anti-racist, non-biased, and inclusive organization. (https://blogs.extension.wisc.edu/oaic/call-to-action/). As such, all Extension employees are expected to
foster and promote the values of diversity and inclusion

Responsibilities:

Contributes to a research agenda set by a lead researcher by preparing data sets, analyzing them using data science techniques, and presenting the results. May work independently or as part of a team.

• 20% Prepares data sets for analysis including cleaning/quality assurance, transformations, restructuring, and integration of multiple data sources
• 20% Independently identifies and implements appropriate data science techniques to find data patterns and answer research questions chosen by the lead researcher including data visualization, statistical analysis, machine learning, and data mining
• 15% Organizes and automates project steps for data preparation and analysis
• 15% Composes and assembles reproducible workflows and reports to clearly articulate patterns to researchers and/or administrators
• 10% Documents approaches to address research questions and contributes to the establishment of reproducible research methodologies and analysis workflows
• 20% Provides expert support and capacity building to programs in the Division of Extension related to: Demographic datasets, quantitative and statistical analysis, data visualization and data literacy.

Education:

Required
Bachelor’s Degree
with a degree consistent with position responsibilities, such as degrees with focus on quantitative data analysis, statistics, spatial and/or demographic analysis

Preferred
Master’s Degree
with a degree consistent with position responsibilities, such as degrees with focus on quantitative data analysis, statistics, spatial and/or demographic analysis.

Qualifications:

Required:

• Minimum 3 years post-degree experience working with publicly available data sets (such as federal, state, etc.) that include socio-demographic variables (for example census data).
• Minimum 3 years post-degree experience in communicating complex findings to stakeholders with limited technical and/or methodological expertise.
• Experience building custom visualizations and/or dashboards based on socio-demographic data, using programs such as Tableau and/or ArcGIS/ArcInfo.
• Experience in analyzing quantitative data using descriptive and inferential statistical methods.
• Demonstrated ability to work with stakeholders to identify desired outcomes, determine key deliverables, and outline key findings related to data analysis and/or data visualization requests.

Preferred:

• 3 years+ post-degree experience in data visualization using Tableau and/or ArcGIS, and/or ArcInfo.
• Experience in independently compiling and analyzing datasets with the purpose of supporting educational and/or community-based programming.