Position Description

a. Cross Cutting Themes (CCT) Objective Area

i. Work collaboratively with CCT team members on the research, capacity development, and engagement of a multi-institution partnership charged with increasing the awareness and strategic integration of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) mandated consideration of the following cross-cutting themes among Innovation Lab core team and Centers of Innovation (grant awardees): gender equity, youth inclusion, nutrition security, and resilience

ii. The Research Associate will also take on leadership responsibilities which include:

1. Visioning, development, and implementation of cross-cutting themes and social inclusion strategy for the innovation lab, successfully developing partnership and funding opportunities to expand Objective Area activities

2. Decision-making and delineation of team members’ roles and responsibilities

3. Addressing additional needs as they arise

4. Serve on the ILCI Steering Committee

5. Engage with other Feed the Future Innovation Labs and/or other related organizations regarding cross-cutting themes, as appropriate

iii. Supervision includes

1. Engaging students (graduate, undergraduate, and visiting) and fellows (e.g., Humphreys Fellow) in term-specific engagements, co-developing experience-appropriate, meaningful learning experiences as identified through learning objectives and goals

2. Managing and supporting relationships with consultants, providing input into ongoing activities to ensure on-time delivery of project goals

3. Supervise and support graduate research assistants as arises

iv. Research

1. Designing and implementing research to inform project activities, particularly around the ILCI core team and Centers of Innovation (COIs) capacity to address the cross-cutting themes

2. Feedback into COI proposed research and activities to increase local understanding of cross-cutting theme issues and their potential relationship to adoption of improved crop varieties

3. Contribute to research plans and tools to carry out essential information gathering to understand and integrate cross cutting theme topics into crop improvement strategies, plans and priorities

v. Capacity Building and Training

1. Development and strategic planning of capacity building activities as related to the overall goal of supporting COIs and ILCI in the development of socially inclusive tools, technologies and methods

2. Identify, maintain, and build relationships with strategic partners to facilitate learning opportunities and potential collaborations on cross-cutting theme integration

3. Provide technical input into and review training material design and delivery

4. Initiating and supporting COVID-19 responsive changes in plans, such as online trainings

5. Anticipated support in coordinating with ILCI management team to identify additional opportunities for training to support diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the innovation lab

vi. Engagement

1. Engage with ILCI core team as well as COIs to increase sensitization and awareness around the importance of cross cutting issues in crop improvement

2. Coordinate with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) objective area on specific activities, including the Turner Fellowship

3. Lead opportunities for communication between COI cross-cutting theme focal points to support an ILCI community of practice

4. Serve as point of contact for all ILCI core team and COI inquiries regarding cross-cutting themes

vii. Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL)

1. Engage with MEL team to ensure that indicators and tracking mechanisms reflect cross-cutting theme topics and activities

2. Support MEL activities around cross-cutting theme trainings to measure impacts and effectiveness

3. Oversee MEL tracking and reporting of cross-cutting theme objective area activities

b. Priority Setting Objective Area

i. Lead the integration cross-cutting team perspective, research, and tools into the development of Priority setting tools, technologies, and methods

ii. Support the clarification of team’s approach to priority setting

iii. Attend and provide technical input into Office Hours, including leading sessions on research methods and ensuring consideration of cross-cutting themes on additional topics

a. Gender integration effectiveness assessment

i. Lead the entire work package ensuring effective and timely delivery

ii. Recruit, train and supervise a graduate student on the development of an assessment framework

iii. Coordinate with faculty advisor on supervision and engagement, facilitating opportunities to highlight the student’s work and leverage for additional opportunities

iv. Develop and manage stakeholder network to ensure strategic coordination and collaboration on the development of the tool and dissemination of results

v. Lead on delivery outputs, including: literature/desk review, case study identification, report finalization, and stakeholder workshop

b. Scoping Review on trait priority setting methods

i. Lead the analysis of gender consideration in priority setting tools and methods based on literature identified through the systematic literature review

ii. Lead primary data collection and analysis from interdisciplinary breeding programs on the process of trait prioritization

c. Ex-ante priority setting framework

i. Lead the integration and focus on gender and other cross-cutting themes into the development of a priority setting framework

ii. Support testing of the framework in multiple locations iii. Provide gender-focused assessment of framework’s effectiveness

d. Modeling data integration into breeding ‘values’

i. Support students and engagement on activity

ii. Provide input into consideration of gender and other cross-cutting themes