Research Analyst

About the Role

CNA is hiring for a Research Analyst to join their Data Science for Defense Production Systems Program. The role is assigned to a team with a focus on technical warfighting and industrial base analysis. The team works closely with Navy sponsors to inform consequential decisions about force design. Staff at this level will be leading smaller/less complex activities or will be serving as an important contributing team member on projects.

Key Responsibilities

• With minimal or no guidance, meets CNA’s quality standards when working on well-structured pieces of a project. Demonstrates ability to develop sound analytic frameworks and associated analytic methodologies/ techniques for addressing both structured and unstructured problems.
• With direction and supervision, clearly defines, structures, and executes a piece of a complex study to meet quality standards. Demonstrates analytic creativity and curiosity.
• Develops and maintains broad, general institutional knowledge of primary clients/sponsors; their culture, organization, and issues.
• Contributes productively and harmoniously to the work of others; treats everyone respectfully, professionally and fairly. Keeps others informed. Proactively identifies and seeks out others working on similar topics. Works to identify opportunities for collaborations within team, division, and operating unit.
• Supports business development efforts and/or marketing activities by maintaining strong client relationships through high quality work, increasing the visibility of our work, and other related activities such as proposal preparation.
• Interacts with sponsors/clients under the supervision of an experienced colleague, and with study POCs independently.
• Makes significant contributions to research publications and analytic products for individual projects.
• Demonstrates ability to communicate results of work in a clear and concise fashion. Effectively communicates one-on-one and in groups. Can document work efficiently and accurately. Can effectively present work to colleagues, sponsors, and small audiences that are familiar with content.
• Works with minimal or no guidance on focused, well-structured pieces of projects. Works under closer supervision on more complex, less-structured tasks.
• Can serve as task lead for pieces of projects by managing own activities.
• May lead small projects under the supervision of an RTL/CMD.
• Exhibits a positive attitude in interactions with colleagues and clients/sponsors. Provides clear guidance to colleagues on tasks. Takes responsibility for own actions and outcomes.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Minimum Master’s degree in a relevant field or equivalent experience, PhD preferred.
• Preference for applicants with backgrounds in operations research, industrial engineering, management science, systems engineering, data science, statistics, or quantitative/computational social sciences.
• Experience in R, Python, or other similar programming language.
• Experience with interactive visualizations, graphical users interfaces, and modeling and simulation preferred.

Qualifications

• Ability to make significant contributions to projects/analyses.
• Strong analytic curiosity/ creativity.
• Ability to operate independently in the execution of assignments.
• Ability to work in a multi-disciplinary environment.
• Strong critical thinking skills.
• Knowledge of research techniques.
• Strong planning and organizational skills.
• Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills.
• Ability to interact positively and somewhat independently with clients.
• Ability to obtain and maintain an Active Secret Security Clearance.

Required Documents

• Resume
• Cover letter
• Writing Sample (research paper or journal article)
• Transcripts (undergrad and graduate)

Optional Documents

• Letters of Recommendations