Jobs at MGGG

The Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group (MGGG) is a research organization based at Tufts and MIT studying applications of geometry and computing to U.S. redistricting. Our mission is both technical and civic, and we aim to drive cutting-edge research, amplify the voices of the public and the civil rights community, and improve accountability in the redistricting process.

We will soon begin hiring for several positions (Geographer, Software Developer, and Data Scientist) through the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. Letters of interest are being accepted until the end of May, by email to jobs@mggg.org. Please include a CV with links to relevant projects, with your GitHub username if applicable. If you see yourself as falling in between these job titles, tell us so. We hope for start dates in Summer 2019, with opportunities for engagement with the Voting Rights Data Institute.

Access to voting rights for communities of color and other marginalized groups is central to our mission, and we strive to build a team that is diverse in as many ways as possible.

• Geographer

  MGGG seeks a full-time Geographer to join a multi-disciplinary team studying political geography, voting rights, and redistricting.

  Main duties will include:

  • Data analysis of elections and districting plans ;
  • Collecting and managing electoral data, shapefiles, and other spatial data products (see, for example, our mggg-states and maup) ;
  • Communicating with election officials to obtain and validate data ;
  • Designing tools and visualizations ;
  • Writing and editing public-facing materials (such as white papers) ;
  • Supervising teams of research assistants.

  Required Qualifications

  • Experience using ArcGIS, QGIS, and/or other desktop GIS for spatial data creation, query, visualization, and analysis ;
  • Experience with spatial data wrangling, including format conversion, attribute and spatial join, and coordinate system transformation ;
  • Experience with cartographic design ;
  • Experience with demography and political geography.

  Desired Qualifications - a non-exhaustive list of possible assets for the position

  • Graduate degree or GIS certificate preferred ;
  • Familiarity with Census data products and precinct-level election data specifically ;
  • Experience working with community groups and civil rights organizations ;
  • Facility with Python and familiarity with geospatial programming in Python (or another high-level programming language like R) ;
  • Experience with spatial databases (preferably using PostGIS/PostgreSQL) ;
  • Knowledge of critical geography, urban sociology, or critical race theory ;
  • Experience as a mentor, teacher, or supervisor ;
  • Writing and editing skills, including reports, articles, and/or user manuals.

• Software Developer

  MGGG seeks a full-time Software Developer to help us build the software and the technical infrastructure needed to produce research and support reform efforts in voting rights and redistricting. Willingness to learn new skills across problem domains is a must.

  Main duties will include:

  • Building and maintaining open-source tools for redistricting research (such as GerryChain), including geospatial data processing and auditing packages (such as maup) ;
  • Contributing to the development of Districtr, our open-source web app for drawing districts and identifying communities ;
  • Solving data science problems that come up in our consulting and research projects, with a focus on creating dependable, systematic approaches that can be reused in the future.

  Required Qualifications

  • Fluency with Python ;
  • Web development, including modern front-end HTML/CSS/JavaScript development ;
  • Experience delivering tested, high-quality code ;
  • Experience with GitHub (or equivalent) and continuous integration practices.

  Desired Qualifications - a non-exhaustive list of possible assets for the position

  • Demonstrated interest in social and racial justice ;
  • Experience writing unit tests with pytest ;
  • Experience handling geospatial data using geopandas/shapely and pandas ;
  • Back-end development in Flask or another Python framework ;
  • Database experience ;
  • UI/UX background.

• Data Scientist

  MGGG seeks a Data Scientist who can expand our reach in research at the interface of mathematics, computing, political science, and law. Examples of our recent data-driven projects include:

  • Study of the Chicago City Council election structure (white paper and districting module)
  • Study of racial gerrymandering in the Virginia House of Delegates
  • Article comparing effects of redistricting criteria in Virginia
  • Amicus brief for SCOTUS partisan gerrymandering cases
  • Article demonstrating “fencing out” of Republicans in Massachusetts

  Required Qualifications

  • Demonstrated track record of creative problem solving with real data ;
  • Network science concepts, including graph theory and clustering techniques ;
  • Comfort with mathematical data science (such as convex geometry, spectral theory, or probability and statistics at the graduate level) ;
  • Experience with technical, popular, and scholarly writing ;
  • Demonstrated interest in social and racial justice.

  Desired Qualifications - a non-exhaustive list of possible assets for the position

  • Background in Markov chains and MCMC ;
  • Experience with spatial data ;
  • Background in theoretical computer science, especially algorithm analysis ;
  • Experience with machine learning ;
  • Background in law, especially constitutional law or election law ;
  • Background in humanities and social science fields bearing on redistricting, such as political science, sociology, or urban studies ;
  • Experience working across disciplines and on tight deadlines ;
  • Fluency with Python.