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Photo of OES Team Retreat August 2016 in Washington DC
Photo caption: OES Team Retreat August 2016 in Washington DC

Office of Evaluation Sciences accepting 2017 Fellowship applications

| Kelly Bidwell, director, Office of Evaluation Sciences
Post filed in: Jobs and the Economy  |  Technology

The Office of Evaluation Sciences (OES) is currently accepting applications for fellowships starting October 2017 in Washington, D.C.  

These highly sought after fellowships offer up-and-coming professionals with exceptional skills the ability to learn the inner workings of the agency regarded as the backbone of the federal government.

Based at the U.S. General Services Administration, OES is a team of applied researchers tasked with building insights from the social and behavioral sciences into federal programs, and testing and learning what works. OES partners with federal agencies to evaluate the effectiveness of new evidence-based interventions on program outcomes and provides agencies evidence to make informed programmatic decisions.

OES has made major strides serving agencies and improving federal programs by applying and testing the impact of behavioral insights on a diverse range of agency outcomes. Dozens of agencies have joined this effort, creating innovative partnerships to tackle some of the most pressing challenges in the United States and abroad. OES has rigorously tested insights on diverse agency priorities such as promoting retirement security, responding to climate change, assisting job seekers, helping families get health coverage and stay healthy, and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of government operations. For more information on our portfolio, visit https://oes.gsa.gov/work/.

Some of the responsibilities of OES Fellows include:

  • Understanding agency objectives and priorities, identifying opportunities to translate findings from the social and behavioral sciences into concrete recommendations.
  • Driving implementation on three to five projects at a time, including collaborating and communicating with agency partners to ensure that: intervention ideas and the pilot design meet agency goals; field experiments are implemented as planned; and the implications of results are clearly understood.
  • Working directly with agency collaborators to design and rigorously test interventions.
  • Performing data analyses and interpretation.
  • Distilling findings into reports, policy memos, and academic publications.

OES team members must possess knowledge of at least one field within the social and behavioral sciences, the ability to creatively apply research knowledge within the federal government setting, the ability to design and manage the day-to-day operations of a large operational field trial, and exceptional communication and interpersonal skills. OES is currently recruiting for the following two roles with associated experience:

  • Fellows have substantial expertise in the social and behavioral sciences field. Typically they are researchers with a Ph.D. and publication record in a social or behavioral science field (e.g., economics, psychology, political science, statistics, sociology, public policy, business, etc.).
  • Associate Fellows are typically pursuing a Ph.D. in the social and behavioral sciences field, have recently completed a Ph.D. or post-doc, or have a master’s degree plus two or more years of relevant experience.

Application Details

Applicants can view the full details on the fellowship and submit their application online. The deadline to submit is 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, January 15, 2017. Finalists will be invited to an interview process that will include a writing exercise, up to two stages of interviews, and an in-person research presentation. We expect final decisions to be communicated to candidates by mid-March 2017.