Policy Researcher - Friedman School of Nutrition

The Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, established in 1981, is among the world's leading graduate and professional schools of nutrition. Its mission is to improve the nutritional well-being of people worldwide through the creation of new knowledge, its application and dissemination, and the education and training of future leaders in the field. Faculty, students and staff at the school include physicians and other health practitioners, biomedical and clinical scientists, nutritionists and epidemiologists, agricultural and environmental scientists, economists, psychologists and others whose work on food and nutrition contributes to the sustainable, equitable development of human societies.

This is a limited term position until October 31, 2029.

This Policy Researcher position offers an exciting and challenging opportunity to inform food policy in Africa, South Asia and worldwide through a project entitled National Actions to Improve Affordability of Healthy Diets. The project will be implemented in close collaboration with the Faculty Affairs Officer (FAO) and country partners, using funds from the Gates Foundation and the United Kingdom's Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office to help identify the most promising steps towards universal access to sufficiently nutritious food for lifelong health. This National Actions project is a successor to Food Prices for Nutrition (2020-25) that developed the Cost and Affordability of Healthy Diets (CoAHD) metrics of food access published in its current form since 2022 by FAO and the World Bank for global monitoring, and since 2024 by national government agencies to monitor variation within Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malawi, Ghana, Pakistan and elsewhere.

The Policy Researcher will use CoAHD data combined with other information to conduct research on where, when, and why the cost of healthy diets is unusually high, and how affordability could be improved. Project activities are divided into two workstreams: (a) improved monitoring of CoAHD, and (b) use of those data to guide policy and program actions to improve affordability. The Analyst will be expected to work independently on both workstreams, and also contribute to the overall project in response to suggestions and feedback from other project staff and collaborators under the supervision of the Project Director, Professor William Masters.

Basic Requirements:

• Knowledge and skills as typically acquired by a Doctoral degree and research experience bridging international nutrition, global health, food economics, agricultural policy or social protection
• Advanced knowledge of statistical software packages for data analysis and visualization, including Stata and R
• Track record of independent work at all stages of the research process from managing complex datasets to presentation and publication of results
• Experience managing shared datasets and workflows within a small research group and also with collaborators across institutional, geographic and disciplinary boundaries
• Experience working with international organizations on policy-oriented reports and policy dialogue with governments
• Clear and precise written and verbal communication skills in email and meetings as well as documentation of research workflows in datasets and software tools, manuscripts and presentations to scientific and policy audiences
• Self-motivation to achieve the highest levels of professional excellence and ethical conduct
• Collaborative orientation with high levels of organizational and time management skills
• Ability to work quickly and independently in response to changing circumstances

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with monitoring and analysis of retail consumer food prices in Africa and South Asia
• Experience with demand system estimation
• Experience using food prices to compute modeled diets that meet nutritional and other goals
• Experience with the Food Prices for Nutrition approach to calculating Cost and Affordability of Healthy Diets