Research Associate

CEA Consulting; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 75,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual performance bonus

Revenue sharing

Raises above COLA

Job summary

CEA Consulting, an environmental consultancy based in San Francisco, seeks a Research Associate to manage complex engagements for foundations, NGOs, and government agencies. The role spans climate, oceans, land use, and sustainable food systems, with emphasis on data-driven research, AI-enabled workflows, and stakeholder collaboration.

You will work across projects with minimal supervision, build robust datasets, and produce structured deliverables for clients while growing your technical and

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required with 2–4 years of relevant work experience or at least 1 year in top-tier management or social-sector consultancy.
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills, including data cleaning, database analysis, and clear visualizations in Tableau or similar tools.
• Experience with AI tools and advanced MS Office (Excel, PowerPoint) is highly desirable.

Responsibilities

• Support project execution in collaboration with team members.
• Formulate and test hypotheses via research, modeling, interviews, and data analyses.
• Conduct independent research and analysis.
• Build and manage datasets, including grant and portfolio databases, with clear visualizations.
• Communicate recommendations via reports and presentations.
• Ensure quality control of deliverables and correspondence.
• Support recruiting searches through research and candidate communication.
• Contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Skills

Quantitative analytics

Excel

Tableau/Visualization

AI tools

Communication

Team collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree + 2–4 years experience or top-tier consultancy

Tools

Airtable

R

Python

SQL

GIS

Job description

About the Organization

CEA Consulting is an environmental consultancy based in San Francisco, CA. For over four decades, CEA Consulting has partnered with a wide range of philanthropies, nonprofits, businesses, and government agencies in effectively tackling urgent environmental challenges, from climate change to ocean conservation to sustainable food systems. By combining rigorous analysis with deep sector expertise, we help our clients develop focused strategies, build and execute effective programs, and assess and amplify their impact.

With approximately 30 employees across the firm, CEA strives to create a collaborative and inclusive work environment where all consultants are supported in doing the work they are most passionate about, developing their skills, and bringing their whole selves to work. We believe that a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences promotes innovation and makes our team more creative, flexible, and productive. For a more in-depth description of our approach to work, please see our Vision, Mission, and Guiding Principles. To learn more about our services and examples of past work, please see our website.

CEA’s Work

CEA supports environmental foundations, nonprofits, private-sector businesses, government agencies, trade associations, and impact investors. We pride ourselves on being client-oriented, insightful, and responsive. Our work encompasses a broad range of environmental topics, from conservation to climate solutions on land and in the water, with many projects having an international scope. The majority of our work serves the philanthropic and non-profit sectors and relates to marine conservation and/or climate change. We also work regularly on climate resilience and adaptation, climate-smart agriculture, land use and conservation, freshwater management, equity and justice in climate and conservation, transportation, wildlife protection, pollution, and urban sustainability. We often work at the intersection of these issues. Our primary offerings include:

• Strategy, including grantmaking strategies, organizational- or initiative-level program strategies, field- or sector-level landscaping and analysis, and opportunity assessments.
• Facilitation, including meeting and workshop design, insight generation, and synthesis; funder collaborative and NGO group facilitation.
• Operational Support, including initiative incubation, grant sourcing and diligence, designing and launching funder collaboratives, and board development and management.
• Analysis and Thought-Leadership, including sector-level climate mitigation analysis, roadmaps or frameworks for collective action, grant database creation and analysis, and field-level state-of-play assessments.
• Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning, including design and implementation of multi-year MEL programs, logic models and theory of change development, learning session facilitation, research to support learning agendas, and third-party evaluations.
• Recruiting and Organizational Design, including executive search and transition planning, staff recruitment and hiring support, strategic talent acquisition partnership, board member recruitment, and executive compensation analysis.

About the Role

CEA is seeking an experienced Research Associate. The successful applicant will support the day-to-day management of complex consulting engagements for clients, including large environment-focused foundations, family foundations, NGOs, impact investors, and bilateral and multilateral agencies. CEA’s client engagements span a breadth of project types, from strategy development and research landscaping to support for recruitment and hiring.

This hire requires prior professional work experience; we are not considering entry-level applicants for this role. We are looking for someone who has already worked in a fast-paced, analytically rigorous environment and who can take ownership of research and analysis with limited supervision from the start.

This is a generalist role. Research Associates work across CEA’s full portfolio, including climate mitigation and adaptation, ocean and marine conservation, land use and conservation, sustainable food systems, and the philanthropic strategy that supports this work. You will typically support several projects at once across different issue areas and client types.

We are placing particular emphasis on technical skills in this search. Research Associates increasingly build and analyze databases, including grants and portfolio databases, produce data visualizations, and use AI tools to accelerate research, synthesis, and quality control. We are looking for a candidate who is already fluent in these tools and eager to help the firm use them well.

Our work environment is collaborative and intense. It requires intellectual rigor, excellent interpersonal and communication skills, independence, attention to detail, self-direction, and a passion for environmental issues. This exciting opportunity will provide regular interaction with leaders in the environmental field and exposure to a wide range of critical environmental issues.

About You

You are a self-starter, and you find joy and fulfillment in a job well done. You deliver your work on time, support your teammates, and help create a collegial, inclusive, and healthy work environment. You are intellectually curious. You work effectively in teams and independently. You are coachable and excited to continue growing your knowledge base and skill set.

You are comfortable being handed an ambiguous research question and turning it into a structured, defensible answer. You reach for the right tool for the job, whether that is a spreadsheet model, a dashboard, an expert interview, or an AI-assisted first pass, and you know how to check your own work.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Support the execution of projects in collaboration with team members.
• Formulate and test hypotheses via research, modeling, expert interviews, and data analyses.
• Conduct research and analysis independently.
• Build, manage, and analyze datasets and databases, including grant and portfolio databases, and develop clear data visualizations.
• Participate in group problem-solving and brainstorming with project teams.
• Liaise and communicate with clients.
• Develop and communicate recommendations via clear and compelling deliverables (e.g., reports, presentations, briefs).
• Ensure quality control of outgoing work products and correspondence.
• Work effectively and efficiently with minimal supervision and proactively engage with project managers.
• Support recruiting searches through research, applicant material development, client and candidate communication support, and application review.
• Participate in CEA’s ongoing journey to become a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable organization.

Desired Qualifications

We welcome candidates with a range of professional experience. Many of our current consultants have experience in environmental nonprofits, consulting, academia, finance and impact investing, engineering, government agencies, foundations, and think tanks. While each consultant at CEA brings different skills and experiences to their work, desired skills and experiences include the following:

• A Bachelor's degree and two to four years of relevant full-time work experience, or at least one year of experience at a top-tier management or social-sector consultancy (e.g., McKinsey, BCG, Deloitte, the Bridgespan Group).
• Content knowledge and professional interest in climate change, energy policy, ocean science and conservation, marine fisheries, coastal communities and livelihoods, climate justice, and/or climate resilience. Candidates coming from a generalist consulting background may bring lighter content expertise, but a demonstrated interest and basic fluency in environmental issues is essential.
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills, including the ability to build, clean, and analyze databases in Excel and to develop clear visualizations in Tableau or comparable software.
• Strong writing and analysis skills, including experience preparing reports, slide decks, briefs, and meeting reports.
• Advanced proficiency in AI tools and large language models (e.g., Claude, ChatGPT), with sound judgment about where they add value and where they do not, and in the Microsoft Office Suite, especially Excel and PowerPoint.
• Ability to present information in an insightful and structured manner, both written and oral.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to communicate effectively across internal teams and with external stakeholders.
• Ability to work, multitask, and prioritize to meet deadlines and to respond to and adapt to changing client needs.
• Ability to handle sensitive matters with discretion and to interact with a wide range of stakeholders (e.g., scientists, policymakers, advocates, and industry representatives) with diplomacy and enthusiasm.
• A curious, pragmatic, and strategic mind.
• An ability and desire to problem-solve independently and to contribute your insight to team projects.
• Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. CEA Consulting is unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa for this position, now or in the future.

Preferred Experience

• Proficiency in qualitative research methods (e.g., interviews, expert consultation, case studies).
• Experience with relational database and workflow tools (e.g., Airtable) and with coding or spatial analysis (e.g., R, Python, SQL, GIS). These are a plus, not a requirement.
• Experience with philanthropy and grantmaking, including pipeline research, due diligence, grant memo drafting, and grants database analysis.
• Other content knowledge that supports CEA’s work, including land preservation, sustainable agriculture, freshwater management, forestry, environmental justice, and/or air quality.
• Professional proficiency in a foreign language, particularly Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin, Bahasa Indonesia, or Korean, with demonstrated cultural competency.
• A passion for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

Work Location

CEA’s office is located in San Francisco, and roughly half of the team lives in the Bay Area, while others work remotely on a permanent basis. This position is based in San Francisco, and we will not consider remote candidates. Those working from our San Francisco office come in at least twice a week. CEA Research Associates are asked to work in our San Francisco office for at least three years. This position will require some travel, likely one or two trips per year, largely domestic.

Compensation and Benefits

• competitive salaries
• excellent health benefits
• additional benefits for those working in the SF office (e.g., commuter benefits and weekly lunches)
• supportive working environment
• Salary will be commensurate with skills and experience.
• $75, 000-$80, 000 base salary range for this position.
• annual performance bonus
• revenue sharing
• opportunity to earn additional bonuses thrice a year when work exceeds billable hour targets
• raises for all staff annually, usually above COLA
• target total compensation in the high five-figures

CEA is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to our legal and ethical obligations to protect job applicants and employees from employment discrimination, harassment, and unfair treatment due to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation), age, disability, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, military status, or veteran status.