Institute for Defense Analyses

Position Title/Short Description

Full Text of JOE Listing:

Overview:

The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) is an independent, non-profit, federally-funded research and development center that provides objective analyses to the Department of Defense and other federal government agencies. Economists at IDA support senior defense leaders by applying economic theory and analytic methods to issues of National Security policy and resource management. As needed, we apply proven tools to new problems and data, develop new models, and generate new theory.

Recent examples of our work:

Training machine learning models to predict individual’s career events using a rich set of administrative personnel records
Estimating causal effects of staffing levels on mission effectiveness
Designing and conducting a multi-year personnel retention experiment impacting thousands of service members
Designing a trial of alcohol market interventions for use on military bases to learn whether such intervention can prevent harmful behaviors associated with alcohol misuse
Architecting a collaborative data-hosting analytic platform to facilitate timely and secure analysis of sensitive Department of Defense information assets across a diverse community of users
Exploring alternative organizational structures and delivery methods for educating and training military medical personnel, in order to reduce costs and streamline management
Identifying opportunities to transfer positions among active and reserve military personnel, federal civilians, and contractors in order to reduce costs and concentrate military personnel in more operational (vs. administrative) positions
Economists at IDA work on a variety of projects. For each project, we are responsible for choosing and using the right tool, whether a familiar standby or a cutting-edge technique. When the right tool is new to us, we learn it. When the right tool doesn't yet exist, we create it (see https://github.com/IDA-HumanCapital/fife).

We take pride in the high caliber and timeliness of our analyses, our independent thinking, and our objective results. We value strong teamwork and communication skills. Work at IDA is conducted in a team environment and often involves a multi-disciplinary approach with physicists, engineers, psychologists, and other social scientists. Researchers work closely with and are in frequent contact with government sponsors. Consequently, strong communication skills are greatly valued.

We will consider job market candidates preparing to graduate, recent graduates, and mid-career individuals.

Qualifications:

Ph.D. in Economics is required, with preference for the fields of computation, industrial organization, applied econometrics, labor, health, and public finance
Demonstrated research excellence and a strong interest in applied research is required
Ability to relocate to the Washington, DC area and work on-site at IDA's headquarters in Alexandria, VA as needed is required
Experience with machine learning techniques and large data sets is preferred
Experience in DoD or other branches of government is preferred

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, interviews will be conducted via Zoom or similar.
IDA will not attend the 2021 Virtual AEA meeting.