Geospatial Data Scientist (Graduate Researcher) – 12-Month Sydney

Cognitioworld; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) is seeking a Graduate Researcher, Geospatial Analysis and Data Systems in Sydney. This full-time, 12-month fixed-term contract offers exposure to satellite imagery processing and data infrastructure within an international research team.

You will help establish a new satellite analysis programme, maintain the MCP connector, ingest and clean data, and build AI-enabled pipelines using Azure.

Qualifications

• Master's degree or higher in computer science, data science, geography, statistics, economics or a related quantitative field. Exceptional candidates with an undergraduate degree and demonstrated skills will be considered.
• Strong programming ability in Python, including the scientific and data stack (pandas, NumPy and similar).
• Working knowledge of SQL and relational databases; experience with PostgreSQL is preferred.
• Sound understanding of statistics and quantitative research methods.
• Ability to take a loosely defined problem, scope it and deliver a working result with limited supervision.
• Clear written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical methods to non-technical colleagues.
• Interest in peace, conflict and development research.

Responsibilities

• Help establish IEP's satellite analysis programme, scoping initial projects, selecting methods and building processing pipelines.
• Acquire, preprocess and manage satellite imagery and derived products (optical, SAR, night-time lights).
• Develop and validate methods for extracting peace- and development-relevant measures from imagery.
• Build reproducible processing pipelines and document methods for publication.
• Produce analyses, figures and written findings for IEP reports and partner deliverables.
• Ingest, clean, harmonise and document datasets in IEP's internal database.
• Maintain and extend database schemas, codebooks and data quality checks.
• Maintain and improve the MCP connector and tooling for AI systems.
• Support automated pipelines behind IEP's indices and publications; manage deployments on Azure.

Skills

Python

SQL & PostgreSQL

Statistics

Data cleaning

Communication

Education

Master's degree or higher in CS/Data Science/Geography/Statistics/Economics or related field

Tools

PostgreSQL

Azure

Git

GDAL

Rasterio

GeoPandas

QGIS

Google Earth Engine

Job description

The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) is seeking a Graduate Researcher, Geospatial Analysis and Data Systems in Sydney. This full-time, 12-month fixed-term contract offers exposure to satellite imagery processing and data infrastructure within an international research team.

You will help establish a new satellite analysis programme, maintain the MCP connector, ingest and clean data, and build AI-enabled pipelines using Azure.