The expected dates of employment: as soon as possible (including Spring term)
Location: very flexible. We might need to meet in person once at the beginning, but then the student can continue to work remotely
Anticipated hours per week: 5-7
Any skills requirement: strong web-scraping skills in Python and relevant packages (BeautifulSoup, Scrapy, Selenium, etc.)
Contact email: roya_talibova@hks.harvard.edu (CV, a sample scraping script)
Professor Talibova is seeking a highly motivated and skilled Research Assistant to contribute to multiple research projects focused on the historical political economy of conflict and development. The successful candidate will play a critical role in collecting and organizing data from searchable database websites, supporting ongoing research initiatives. The ideal candidate should be able to develop and implement Python scripts to scrape and extract data from searchable database websites; clean, process, and structure the extracted data for analysis; troubleshoot and optimize code for efficiency and accuracy. This position requires strong web-scraping skills in Python; proficiency in relevant Python packages (BeautifulSoup, Scrapy, Selenium, and pandas); familiarity with handling complex HTML structures, dynamic content, and APIs; and experience in processing and cleaning large datasets. Familiarity with and knowledge of geospatial data and geocoding is also desirable. The job is generally remote. Please send your CV and any relevant project examples or code samples to roya_talibova@hks.harvard.edu. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled.