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Employment Opportunities at COWS
Senior Associate, Transportation Policy
Degree and area of specialization: MA or PhD in transportation planning, civil engineering, public policy, or related field. Applicants without graduate degrees but with exceptional professional backgrounds will be considered.
Minimum number of years and type of relevant work experience: At least three years of professional experience in transportation planning, policy analysis, or related field. Excellent writing and spoken communication skills required. Familiarity with the fundamentals of transportation planning and policy, and the role of transportation in contributing to or undermining economic and environmental goals, also required. Background in research, including both qualitative and quantitative methods, highly desirable.
Background: COWS is about to launch a new project called the State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI). Current transportation policy and practices are draining public budgets, degrading the environment, worsening inequality, retarding competitiveness, and failing most measures of efficient democratic government project on transportation reform. SSTI aims to reform current U.S. transportation policy and practice from the "ground" of state and local transportation decisions up. Most transportation decisions are made at the state or local level, either by the state and local governments, or by individual and firms navigating the built environment those governments create. Many state and local transportation decision-makers (e.g., DOT CEOs, MPO and transit authority executives, Governors, Mayors, and County Executives) recognize the deficiencies of current practice, and they support "smart transportation" (ST) policies and practices that meet mobility needs without compromising achievement of high-road ends, but they need help in implementation.
SSTI: The State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) aims to provide that help. SSTI will convene these ST-supporting transportation decision-makers as a community of practice, provide members of that community with technical assistance in implementing transformative and replicable ST reforms, and communicate the results in national discussion.
SSTI will employ up to two staff members as policy analyst/outreach specialists. These staff members, reporting to SSTI’s director and managing director, will:
- Perform policy research to inform decisions of the SSTI executive board, especially in its vetting of state DOT proposals for Technical Assistance
- Support the “community of practice” discussions, with policy advice either by own research, or gaining input form external expertise.
- Help provide technical assistance to states in concert with SSTI’s contracted technical assistance providers.
- Compile and disseminate policy innovation and best practice information for SSTI states.
- Produce content for and maintain the SSTI web site.
- Take a leading role in providing points of contact to the states as needed.Support the managing director in tracking progress of TA providers deployed to various states.
- Work with and advise the managing director in organizing the content of board and “community of practice” meetings.
- Provide other policy and communication support as needed.
A period of evaluation will be required.
To Apply:
Please send a resume and cover letter referencing PVL #64850 by
August 25,2010, to:
Matthew Wyndham
University of Wisconsin
1180 Observatory Drive, Room 7122
Madison, WI 53706
or
mwyndham@cows.org