Undergraduate Research Assistant — Geospatial Analysis

AidData, a research lab at the Global Research Institute at William & Mary, has an opening for three undergraduate research assistants. 

The hiring team is engaged in two projects.

The first project uses advanced deep learning algorithms to classify rainwater harvesting systems (demilunes) in Africa. They aim to identify demilune structures and create high-quality maps for environmental analysis, with applications in climate-sensitive agriculture and biodiversity conservation.

The second project focuses on a geospatial impact evaluation of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) in India, conducted in collaboration with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) economists, to assess the program's impact on poverty reduction and women’s empowerment.

These projects each provide the opportunity to learn state-of-the-art methods in deep learning, data preparation, programming, geospatial analysis, and impact evaluation, while offering hands-on experience in accessing reliable datasets and applying evaluation methodologies for real-world research.

This position will start as soon as possible and will run through 05/09/2025. The position could extend through to the end of the summer semester, but this depends on performance.

Primary responsibilities include:

• Collect ground reference data through fieldwork and open-access geospatial datasets.
• Clean and preprocess raw data using programming languages or GIS software 
• Conduct literature reviews related to project topics
• Write and edit scripts in Python and/or R

 Required Qualifications:

The ideal candidate should have completed GIS and programming courses at William & Mary.

• Background in data analysis.
• Knowledge of GIS software including QGIS and ArcGIS. 
• Basic programming knowledge from data science courses.

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Strong geospatial analysis skills.
• Proficiency in using ArcGIS Pro for geospatial analysis.
• Ability to write basic Python/R scripts.