The Environmental Frontiers Initiative seeks a Graduate Student Project Lead to oversee research efforts under EFCampus. EFCampus brings together students, faculty, and staff to collaboratively explore and implement sustainability practices on campus. This is a great opportunity for someone interested in bridging sustainability research and operational planning, and includes direct access to the University’s sustainability efforts and institutional leads.
The role is paid $26/hour and is part-time (about 10 hours/week). Our current graduate student lead is graduating in December 2023, so we are looking for someone to join the team in November of this year. This will allow a transition and ramp up period before taking over to lead the projects in Winter and Spring 2024. There is potential to extend this role into a full-time internship in Summer 2024.
Job Summary
The Graduate Student Project Lead will oversee two EFCampus projects, including supervising teams of 2-3 undergraduate RAs conducting analysis. Current EFCampus projects include: 1) Lab Building Energy Analysis and Design, 2) Business Air Travel Emissions Analysis with Booth, and 3) Food Waste with UChicago Dining. Working in close collaboration with faculty and staff stakeholders, the Graduate Student Lead will be responsible for scoping the next phases of project work, defining milestones and deliverables, and conceiving of programmatic strategy. The Grad Student Lead will serve as the central coordinator across all EFCampus stakeholders, namely the undergraduate students, faculty members, and representatives from Facilities Services. In supervising the undergraduate RA teams, you will be responsible for providing regularly scheduled guidance on the students’ work, responding to their inquiries, ensuring they meet identified milestones and deadlines, and reviewing their work products for quality and completeness
Eligibility
- Must be enrolled in a University of Chicago graduate degree program
- Preference for students with a demonstrated focus on environmental science, energy policy, sustainability research, conservation measures, or urban scholarship
- A minimum of 3-5 years of professional experience in conducting research projects, program management, sustainability planning, and/or engineering
- Experience working with senior leaders or executives in a complex environment preferred
Preferred Qualifications
- Exceptional time and project management and organizational skills, including the ability to meet external and internal deadlines
- Demonstrates the skill and willingness to take initiative and to proactively anticipate project needs
- Ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously, set priorities, and manage resources accordingly
- A working knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Familiarity with data visualization platforms like Tableau a plus.
- Significant experience in quantitative methods and/or computational analysis preferred
- Demonstrated ability to influence people to meet goals and deadlines, work collaboratively with senior leadership, scholars, student workers, and other stakeholders
About Environmental Frontiers Campus
EFCampus is the campus-based component of the Environmental Frontiers initiative, enabling students to use campus data, operational systems, and community behaviors as a case study for understanding a path to a more sustainable future, on campus and beyond. EFCampus provides undergraduate students opportunities to advance research on applied projects that explore campus sustainability, with an eye toward transferable knowledge to inform strategies in neighborhoods and whole urban areas. These data-driven projects will analyze campus data, engaging students in using rigorous quantitative methods to understand campus energy use and opportunities to increase efficiency. Working closely with faculty and staff from Facilities Services, students will think critically about what the data suggests are the most effective interventions to create energy-savings and reduce unnecessary consumption. Environmental Frontiers is a partnership between the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU), the Center for Robust Decision- making on Climate and Energy Policy (RDCEP), and the Offices of Facilities Services and Campus Planning + Sustainability at the University of Chicago
Applications are now closed and will reopen again in 2024.
For questions, please contact Emily Padston, padston@uchicago.edu.