Observatory Data Analyst Fellow, International Truth & Trauma Institute (ITTI) / Outlets for Hope, Inc.
Job Type: Fellowship / Internship
Compensation: Unpaid Internship / Fellowship
Work Setting: Remote
Fellowship Duration: 3-Month Commitment Required
Schedule: 3 Days Per Week | 5–6 Hours Per Day (Approximately 15–18 Hours/Week)
Start Date: Immediate / Fall 2026 (September to November)
Organization: International Truth & Trauma Institute (ITTI), a program of Outlets for Hope, Inc.
About the Fellowship
The International Truth & Trauma Institute (ITTI) is seeking a highly analytical, technically capable, and globally minded Observatory Data Analyst Fellow to support the continued development of the ITTI Global Trauma Observatory.
This is an unpaid educational fellowship/internship for an advanced undergraduate student, graduate student, recent graduate, researcher, or early-career professional seeking substantive hands-on experience in international data analysis, conflict and trauma research, global risk indicators, data visualization, policy research, and digital research infrastructure.
The Fellowship requires a minimum 3-month commitment, working 3 days per week for approximately 5–6 hours per day (15–18 hours per week).
Because the Fellowship is remote and project-driven, the successful candidate MUST be able to work independently and productively with minimal supervision. Fellows will receive direction, project objectives, and periodic supervision, but are expected to organize their work, troubleshoot problems, conduct independent research, meet deadlines, and move assigned projects forward without continuous oversight.
Students seeking internship, practicum, field-placement, capstone, research, or school-required experiential hours are encouraged to apply where permitted by their academic institution.
This is not a clerical or data-entry internship.
The selected Fellow will work with real-world international datasets and help transform complex information about conflict, collective trauma, political instability, elections, displacement, governance, socioeconomic vulnerability, and institutional resilience into meaningful analytical products for the ITTI Global Trauma Observatory.
THE PRIMARY ASSIGNMENT: THE ITTI GLOBAL TRAUMA OBSERVATORY
The ITTI Global Trauma Observatory is being developed as a digital research and intelligence platform for understanding and measuring the forces that create, perpetuate, and potentially predict collective trauma, political instability, and conflict around the world.
The Observatory brings together international data and analytical frameworks to produce:
- country-level analytical profiles
- global and regional comparisons
- interactive maps
- trauma and vulnerability indices
- election-risk indicators
- conflict-risk indicators
- longitudinal trends
- data dashboards
- early-warning indicators
- policy-oriented analytical reports
- downloadable research products
- data infrastructure supporting advanced conflict forecasting
The Observatory Data Analyst Fellow will help ensure that the information behind these products is accurate, current, reproducible, scientifically defensible, and clearly communicated.
Key Responsibilities 1. Global Dataset Collection & Management
Collect, organize, clean, merge, update, and maintain international datasets covering approximately 195 countries and territories, where reliable data are available.
Potential data domains include:
- armed conflict
- political violence
- elections
- forced displacement
- refugees and internally displaced populations
- mortality and population health
- governance
- political stability
- rule of law
- human rights
- poverty and economic conditions
- unemployment
- inequality
- demographic pressures
- food insecurity
- humanitarian emergencies
- institutional capacity
- social fragmentation
- climate-related stressors
- other indicators associated with collective trauma and instability
The Fellow must be comfortable working with datasets originating from different institutions, methodologies, geographic units, time periods, and file structures.
2. Data Cleaning, Validation & Quality Assurance
A major responsibility of this Fellowship is maintaining the scientific integrity of Observatory data.
Tasks may include:
- identifying missing values
- detecting duplicate records
- identifying anomalous observations
- standardizing country names and country codes
- harmonizing dates and reporting periods
- resolving conflicting values
- checking units and measurement scales
- documenting transformations
- maintaining data dictionaries
- tracking dataset versions
- examining methodological changes in source datasets
- conducting quality-control checks before publication
- maintaining reproducible analytical workflows
The Fellow should continually ask:
Can another researcher determine exactly where this number came from, how it was processed, and reproduce our result?
3. Country-Level Analytical Profiles
Help develop and maintain Observatory profiles for countries around the world.
Country analyses may incorporate:
- historical collective trauma burden
- conflict history
- current political violence
- displacement
- institutional vulnerability
- governance indicators
- economic stress
- election-related instability
- humanitarian conditions
- demographic pressures
- regional comparisons
- historical trends
- emerging warning indicators
The objective is not simply to display statistics.
The Fellow will help transform multiple data streams into coherent, evidence-based assessments of national and regional conditions.
4. ITTI Indices & Composite Indicators
Assist with the calculation, maintenance, testing, and documentation of ITTI's emerging proprietary analytical frameworks, including:
Global Trauma Burden Index (GTBI)
and
Election Trauma Temperature Index (ETTI)
The Fellow may also contribute to additional Observatory indices and analytical modules as they are developed.
Responsibilities may include:
- variable preparation
- normalization
- standardization
- weighting
- composite-score calculation
- ranking
- percentile calculation
- sensitivity analysis
- year-to-year comparisons
- regional benchmarking
- methodological documentation
The Fellow will work with ITTI researchers to help ensure that these measures remain transparent, interpretable, reproducible, and analytically defensible.
5. Statistical & Quantitative Analysis
Strong quantitative and data-analysis ability is required.
The Fellow may conduct:
- descriptive statistics
- correlation analysis
- regression analysis
- trend analysis
- time-series analysis
- comparative country analysis
- longitudinal analysis
- clustering
- normalization and standardization
- index construction
- anomaly detection
- exploratory data analysis
- basic predictive analytics
This position is primarily focused on data analysis, data infrastructure, visualization, and Observatory development, rather than serving as the lead statistical-modeling position.
However, the successful candidate must possess sufficient quantitative competency to work alongside ITTI researchers developing advanced forecasting systems.
6. Support the Global Conflict Foresight System (GCFS™)
The Observatory will provide a critical data foundation for ITTI's emerging Global Conflict Foresight System (GCFS™).
GCFS™ is being designed as a forward-looking analytical system examining conflict and destabilization risk across approximately:
1-Month | 3-Month | 6-Month | 12-Month | 24-Month Forecast Horizons
The Observatory Data Analyst Fellow may support this work by:
- preparing model-ready datasets
- identifying potential predictor variables
- conducting exploratory analysis
- examining historical relationships
- identifying data gaps
- maintaining longitudinal datasets
- supporting feature engineering
- validating source data
- preparing country-level indicators
- visualizing forecasting outputs
The Fellow therefore becomes part of a larger analytical architecture connecting:
Global Data → Collective Trauma → Elections → Institutional Stress → Political Instability → Conflict Risk → Forecasting → Early Warning
7. Data Visualization & Dashboard Development
Transform complex international datasets into compelling, accurate, and understandable visual products.
These may include:
- interactive world maps
- choropleth maps
- heat maps
- country rankings
- trend charts
- regional comparisons
- risk matrices
- indicator dashboards
- country scorecards
- election-risk displays
- conflict timelines
- vulnerability profiles
- early-warning dashboards
Excellent visualization is not simply decoration. It is part of the analytical process.
The Fellow should be capable of helping translate complex findings for audiences that may include researchers, policymakers, governments, NGOs, humanitarian organizations, corporations, journalists, students, and the public.
8. Observatory Website & Digital Infrastructure
The successful candidate will also help maintain and update the digital environment through which Observatory research is presented.
Applicants should have the ability to maintain and update a professional website such as ITTIglobal.org, or demonstrate strong transferable technical skills and the ability to learn website administration quickly.
Responsibilities may include:
- updating Observatory pages
- publishing country profiles
- uploading research reports
- updating datasets
- embedding charts and maps
- maintaining data tables
- updating dashboard components
- troubleshooting website content
- checking and correcting broken links
- improving navigation
- maintaining consistent formatting
- supporting data-to-web integration
Experience with WordPress or other CMS platforms, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, APIs, dashboard technologies, web development, or website administration is highly desirable.
9. Research & Source Verification
The Observatory must rely upon authoritative, traceable, and scientifically credible information.
The Fellow may work with international sources including:
- United Nations agencies
- World Bank
- World Health Organization
- international conflict-event databases
- humanitarian organizations
- election-monitoring organizations
- academic research institutions
- national statistical agencies
- peer-reviewed research
- reputable governance and development databases
Responsibilities include verifying sources, documenting methodologies, maintaining citations, recording publication dates, and distinguishing primary data from secondary interpretation.
10. Observatory Monitoring & Updating
Help establish a systematic process for keeping Observatory information current.
This may involve monitoring changes in:
- conflict data
- election conditions
- political instability
- humanitarian crises
- displacement
- governance
- economic conditions
- newly released international datasets
- emerging country-level risks
The Fellow may help determine whether new information materially changes a country's analytical profile or risk classification.
11. Build a Reproducible Data-to-Publication Pipeline
Help ITTI develop an increasingly systematic workflow connecting:
Source Data → Cleaning → Validation → Analysis → Index Calculation → Visualization → Interpretation → Observatory Publication
The long-term objective is to create a professional research infrastructure that minimizes manual error, maintains scientific traceability, and can scale as the Observatory expands.
Where technically feasible, the Fellow may help automate portions of this process.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
Applicants should demonstrate meaningful experience in data analysis and be comfortable working with complex datasets.
Competitive candidates should have experience with several of the following:
- Microsoft Excel at an advanced level
- Python
- R
- SQL
- SPSS
- Stata
- SAS
- Power BI
- Tableau
- pandas
- NumPy
- Plotly
- GIS/geospatial analysis
- statistical analysis
- data visualization
- API integration
- database management
- web-based dashboards
- website administration
Applicants are not expected to know every technology listed above.
However, this Fellowship requires substantially more than basic spreadsheet or data-entry skills.
INDEPENDENCE & MINIMAL SUPERVISION ARE ESSENTIAL
Because this is a remote, research-intensive Fellowship, the successful candidate MUST be capable of working independently and with minimal supervision.
ITTI will provide project direction, research priorities, methodological guidance, and periodic supervision.
However, Fellows are expected to:
- independently organize assigned work
- manage their time effectively
- conduct necessary background research
- troubleshoot routine technical problems
- identify and communicate data problems
- meet agreed deadlines
- maintain organized project files
- document methodologies and sources
- communicate when genuine barriers arise
- provide concise progress updates
- take ownership of assigned deliverables
Candidates who require continuous day-to-day supervision to remain productive are unlikely to be a good fit for this Fellowship.
Required Time Commitment
Applicants must be able to commit to the Fellowship for at least three consecutive months.
Required Schedule
3 days per week
5–6 hours per Fellowship day
Approximately 15–18 hours per week
Minimum commitment: 3 months
Applicants should consider their academic, employment, and personal schedules carefully before applying.
Please apply only if you can realistically maintain this commitment throughout the three-month Fellowship.
Reliability and continuity are particularly important because Fellows may assume responsibility for datasets, analytical workflows, country portfolios, or Observatory components that require consistent development over time.
Preferred Academic Background
Strong candidates may come from:
- Data Science
- Statistics
- Computer Science
- Economics / Econometrics
- Political Science
- International Relations
- Public Policy
- Public Health
- Epidemiology / Biostatistics
- Geographic Information Systems
- Computational Social Science
- Sociology
- Development Studies
- Peace and Conflict Studies
- International Development
- related quantitative or interdisciplinary disciplines
Advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, doctoral students, recent graduates, and qualified early-career professionals are encouraged to apply.
The Candidate We Are Looking For
We are particularly interested in someone who can be given a research objective and independently determine how to move it forward.
The ideal Fellow sees a large international dataset and begins asking:
Is this data reliable? What is missing? What changed? Which countries are outliers? How should these variables be standardized? What trends are emerging? Can this be visualized more effectively? What does the finding actually mean? Can another researcher reproduce it?
The successful Fellow should be:
- highly analytical
- exceptionally detail-oriented
- quantitatively competent
- technologically comfortable
- intellectually curious
- self-directed
- dependable
- capable of independent problem-solving
- comfortable with minimal supervision
- interested in global affairs
- capable of handling messy real-world data
- attentive to methodological integrity
- able to meet deadlines
- capable of communicating technical findings clearly
Fellowship Learning & Professional Development
This Fellowship is structured as an experiential-learning opportunity rather than routine clerical work.
Depending on assignments and performance, Fellows may gain practical experience in:
- international data analytics
- global conflict datasets
- collective-trauma research
- index construction
- data quality assurance
- country-risk analysis
- data visualization
- dashboard development
- geospatial analysis
- policy research
- forecasting-data preparation
- website-based research dissemination
- scientific documentation
- interdisciplinary research collaboration
Fellows may develop substantial portfolio-quality analytical work demonstrating experience with complex international datasets and an emerging global research platform.
Where appropriate, ITTI may work with educational institutions regarding approved internship, practicum, field-placement, capstone, or experiential-learning requirements.
Fellowship Recognition
Successful Fellows may become eligible, subject to satisfactory completion and ITTI requirements, for recognition within the ITTI Fellowship Program and opportunities for continued participation in Institute research initiatives.
Exceptional performance may also lead to consideration for:
- advanced Fellowship responsibilities
- research collaboration
- authorship or contributorship where academically appropriate
- participation in Observatory reports
- project leadership
- professional references or recommendations
- future ITTI research initiatives
Participation in the Fellowship does not guarantee future paid employment.
IMPORTANT — THIS IS AN UNPAID FELLOWSHIP/INTERNSHIP
This is an unpaid internship/fellowship opportunity.
There is no salary, hourly wage, or stipend associated with this Fellowship.
The Fellowship is intended primarily as a supervised educational, research, professional-development, and experiential-learning opportunity.
Applicants should apply only if they fully understand and accept the unpaid nature of the Fellowship and can commit approximately 15–18 hours per week for at least three months.
How to Apply
Please submit:
- Resume/CV
- Brief statement explaining your interest in the ITTI Global Trauma Observatory
- Description of your data-analysis experience
- Description of the largest or most complex dataset you have personally analyzed
- List of analytical technologies you can use proficiently
- Description of any website, dashboard, GIS, or data-visualization experience
- Optional link to GitHub, Tableau/Power BI dashboard, research project, publication, portfolio, or other technical work
In your application, please describe one project in which you personally transformed raw data into a meaningful analytical finding, research output, dashboard, or visualization.
Please also confirm that you can commit to:
3 months | 3 days per week | 5–6 hours per day | Remote
Applications demonstrating only data-entry experience without substantive analytical capability are unlikely to be competitive.
International Truth & Trauma Institute (ITTI)
A program of Outlets for Hope, Inc., a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization.
Advancing research, education, analytics, and global leadership at the intersection of trauma, conflict, institutional resilience, and human development.
Job Type: Part-time
Pay: $1.00 - $1.01 per hour
Work Location: Remote
