Who: Metropolitan Planning Council, Chicago, Illinois
Department: Transit
Employment Type: Full-Time
Minimum Experience: Experienced
Compensation: $60,000-$65,000
Description
The position will report to the Director of Transportation, supporting both transportation and water resources projects, and work closely with others on staff in multi-disciplinary project teams.
Scope of Role
The Associate will support research, advocacy, and project coordination including for transportation and water resources projects. The Associate performs task management in support of projects, managing internal and external communications to project partners, conducts foundational research, supports advocacy activities, develops meeting summaries and documentation and supports tracking project outcomes.
Key Responsibilities
- Project coordination and support for transportation, water resources and related projects
- Stakeholder outreach, meeting management, documenting and tracking project outcomes
- Analytical research in support of program efforts
- Data analysis and use of GIS to analyze trends and create maps as well as other data visualizations to communicate research findings
- Advocacy activities including participating in various coalitions to collaborate on advancing policy change, and supporting development of correspondence and blogs to describe policy issues and solutions
Knowledge/Skills/Abilities:
- Knowledge of federal, state, and regional transportation agencies and processes
- Ability to conduct analysis of transportation data sets including Census, household travel survey and specialized data such as regional sidewalk dataset
- Ability to conduct mapping and analysis in GIS
- Experience analyzing and translating research findings into practical recommendations that can inform policy decisions
- Knowledge or interest in water resources policy is a plus
- Strong oral and written communication and time management skills
- Ability to analyze data in support of research, projects, reports and other communications
- Ability to manage multiple priorities and organize efficient work processes, collaborating with managers and peers, supporting timely outcomes
- A nimble and creative mindset with emotional intelligence, compassion, patience, and a sense of humor
- Interpersonal communication skills strong enough to test and embrace new ways of working
Education & Experience
- A bachelor's degree in public policy, urban planning, public administration or other relevant fields. Master’s degree is highly desirable. Depth of experience may be substituted for formal or degree certification.
Please respond to the following prompts in the cover letter:
- Please detail experience with GIS and data analysis
- Please describe experience working on transportation planning and policy issues
- Please detail any experience working on water policy issues
- Please detail experience maintaining productivity in a dynamic working environment