Fall 2025: GRI Undergraduate Research Assistant

AidData and the Global Research Institute at William & Mary are hiring a paid undergraduate research assistant.

The research assistant will have the opportunity to learn state-of-the-art methods in deep learning, data preparation, programming, and geospatial analysis, while offering hands-on experience in accessing reliable datasets for real-world research.

The research assistant will support the team by using advanced deep learning algorithms to classify rainwater harvesting systems (demi-lune) in Africa, aiming to identify demi-lune structures and create high-quality maps for environmental analysis, with applications in climate-sensitive agriculture and biodiversity conservation.

This position will cover the whole fall semester and start as soon as possible after September 1, 2025. This position will pay between $12-15 per hour. The research Assistant will be expected to work an average of 10 hours per week.

Primary responsibilities

• Collect ground reference data through open-access geospatial datasets.
• Clean and preprocess raw data using programming languages or GIS software.
• Conduct literature reviews related to project topics.
• Write and edit scripts in Python and/or R.