Chief Research and Editorial Director

CHIEF RESEARCH & EDITORIAL DIRECTOR INTERN — WORKING LEADERSHIP ROLE

ABOUT PROJECT GUARDIAN

Project Guardian is a structured, multidisciplinary internship initiative operated by Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC. The program focuses on developing research, implementation strategy, partnership frameworks, and funding-readiness materials for a proposed Kenya-centered infrastructure pilot within a broader global infrastructure initiative.

The internship is designed to expose participants to the intersection of infrastructure planning, public policy, international development, research, long-form writing, editorial production, program management, risk, communications, and public-private partnership strategy.

Project Guardian remains a research, planning, and educational initiative. Participation does not authorize an intern to represent the company, implement infrastructure activities, provide regulated professional services, certify conclusions, or make commitments to external parties.

PROGRAM TERMS

• Program period: October 26, 2026–February 5, 2027

• Planned holiday pause: December 19, 2026 through January 3, 2027
• No routine assignments or meetings are expected during the holiday pause
• Fully remote and asynchronous-first
• Participants ordinarily contribute 5–10 hours per week
• Work exceeding 10 hours in a week requires advance written approval and may not exceed approximately 15 hours
• Scheduling will reasonably accommodate academic calendars, examinations, religious observances, disabilities, approved accommodations, and previously disclosed obligations
• The internship is unpaid
• Academic credit may be available only when approved by the participant’s institution
• Academic credit is not guaranteed and is not required to participate
• Participation does not promise or imply future paid employment, compensation, travel, continued engagement, publication credit, or appointment to a permanent position

The program has a defined and limited duration. Hours may be reduced, assignments may be rescheduled, and participation may be modified when necessary to protect the participant’s academic obligations or comply with institutional requirements.

EDUCATIONAL STRUCTURE

This is a structured, project-based learning experience. Participants receive defined learning objectives, supervised assignments, written instructions, access to relevant background materials, milestone-based feedback, reasonable revision opportunities, and exposure to multidisciplinary infrastructure, policy, research, funding, writing, and program-management work.

Assignments are designed to develop transferable skills through bounded educational projects rather than to substitute for regular paid staff. Interns will not be used to fill routine vacancies or independently perform functions requiring licensed, regulated, or otherwise specially authorized professionals.

The company may derive value from accepted internship work, but educational development, supervision, feedback, and demonstrable learning remain essential features of the program. Assignments may be revised or discontinued when adequate supervision, educational value, appropriate authorization, or safe and responsible execution cannot be maintained.

Participants may produce portfolio-appropriate work, subject to confidentiality, intellectual-property, attribution, security, privacy, and release requirements. No project material may be included in a portfolio, submitted for separate publication, or shared externally without prior written authorization.

Participation does not guarantee authorship credit, byline placement, publication, public attribution, or the right to distribute project materials. Authorship and acknowledgment decisions will consider actual contribution, editorial standards, confidentiality, and the requirements of any final publication or external recipient.

Academic credit may be available only when approved by the participant’s institution. Participants are responsible for initiating their institution’s academic-credit or internship-authorization process. Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC will reasonably consider requests for learning agreements, supervisor confirmations, progress evaluations, final evaluations, hour verification, or comparable institutional documentation.

Institutional cooperation remains subject to review of the requested terms, administrative capacity, applicable requirements, and company authorization. The company cannot guarantee that it will execute every institution-specific agreement or accept requirements that materially alter the program, create unsupported representations, or impose obligations it cannot responsibly fulfill.

ROLE PURPOSE

The Chief Research and Editorial Director Intern leads the supervised development, integration, and editorial production of Project Guardian’s principal research materials.

The anticipated centerpiece is a pilot-focused strategy paper of approximately 50–60 pages, supported by executive, funding, implementation, and presentation materials. The final length, structure, claims, and publication status will depend on the evidence available, approved scope, quality review, and final authorization.

This is a working educational leadership position. The selected participant will coordinate bounded assignments for research and editorial contributors while also personally conducting research, drafting priority content, restructuring material, resolving overlap, synthesizing contributions, and editing major deliverables.

The title describes the participant’s internal educational function within the internship program. It does not make the participant a corporate officer, employee, independent publisher, legal representative, final authority, or spokesperson for Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC or Project Guardian.

The Director owns supervised research integration, narrative structure, and editorial coherence. The Evidence and Quality Assurance Lead independently evaluates evidentiary support, factual reliability, calculations, methodology, and approval readiness. Neither function replaces the other, and the Director may not approve their own substantive work without the required independent review.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of the internship, the participant should be able to:

• Translate an approved research agenda into bounded questions, sections, assignments, milestones, and acceptance criteria
• Develop and maintain a coherent architecture for a substantial multidisciplinary report
• Synthesize research from multiple disciplines without obscuring uncertainty or disagreement
• Edit multi-author work for logic, structure, clarity, consistency, attribution, and audience usefulness
• Distinguish editorial judgment from independent evidence and quality-assurance review
• Develop appropriate writing, citation, terminology, formatting, and authorship standards
• Provide specific, constructive, and educational feedback to researchers and writers
• Maintain traceability among research questions, sources, drafts, findings, and recommendations
• Identify duplication, structural gaps, scope drift, unsupported transitions, and unresolved research needs
• Apply responsible authorship, attribution, confidentiality, version-control, and AI-use practices
• Adapt approved research into executive summaries, briefing materials, presentation content, and funding materials
• Recognize when local knowledge or qualified technical, legal, financial, regulatory, or other professional review is required
• Reflect on editorial leadership, revision management, research integrity, and continued professional development

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Translate the approved research agenda into sections, research questions, assignments, milestones, acceptance criteria, and editorial deadlines
• Develop and maintain the master outline, editorial calendar, research matrix, section specifications, and priority schedule
• Define the intended audience, purpose, evidence requirements, and completion standard for each major deliverable
• Coordinate researchers, writers, editors, faculty advisers, subject-matter advisers, and relevant specialty teams within approved scope
• Assign and rebalance bounded work according to expertise, capacity, dependencies, educational needs, priorities, and continuity risk
• Conduct substantive original research and draft priority sections
• Integrate contributions from multiple authors into a coherent, consistent, appropriately qualified, and decision-ready narrative
• Identify duplication, contradictions, structural gaps, unsupported transitions, scope drift, and unresolved questions
• Edit for organization, clarity, precision, tone, terminology, attribution, audience suitability, and accessibility
• Ensure that Kenya-specific claims reflect credible local or regional evidence and avoid unsupported generalizations
• Flag material gaps requiring Kenyan institutional, technical, community, academic, or subject-matter input
• Avoid implying that any Kenyan institution, community, official, university, company, or other stakeholder has endorsed the project unless that representation is expressly authorized and documented
• Maintain traceable links among research questions, source materials, draft sections, conclusions, recommendations, and derivative materials
• Maintain version control and clear records of authorship, individual contributions, revisions, open issues, and editorial decisions
• Protect authorship and research integrity by escalating suspected plagiarism, unattributed copying, fabricated sourcing, material misrepresentation, or inappropriate reuse
• Coordinate citations, calculations, methods, evidence limitations, and supporting materials with the Evidence and Quality Assurance Lead
• Ensure that AI-assisted content is disclosed internally when required, independently verified, and supported by appropriate authoritative sources
• Ensure that confidential or restricted information is not included in unauthorized drafts, tools, portfolios, or external materials
• Develop executive summaries, briefing materials, and approved adapted content for the pitch deck, funding materials, and implementation documents
• Return drafts with specific, respectful, constructive, and actionable revision instructions
• Escalate material research gaps, missed deadlines, authorship concerns, ethical issues, confidentiality risks, or unresolved substantive disagreements
• Prioritize consequential sections and decision-critical materials rather than giving every item the same degree of editorial attention
• Cross-train editorial contributors and maintain usable standards, templates, version records, and handoff documentation

The Director is not expected to possess expertise in every subject addressed by the program. The educational objective is to integrate specialized contributions, recognize evidentiary and disciplinary limits, and route questions to appropriate reviewers.

SUPERVISION AND FEEDBACK

The Chief Research and Editorial Director Intern reports primarily to the Program Director and remains subject to the authority of the Executive Sponsor or another expressly designated company supervisor. Routine operational matters may be coordinated through the Deputy Program and Operations Manager.

The Director collaborates with, but does not supervise the independent findings of, the Evidence and Quality Assurance Lead. Material disagreements concerning evidence, methodology, authorship integrity, or external readiness must be documented and escalated rather than concealed through editorial changes.

Supervision is expected to include:

• Written role expectations and assignment instructions
• Access to approved research, editorial, citation, authorship, and document-control standards
• Regular progress, workload, priority, and capacity check-ins
• Written or documented feedback on substantive research, writing, editing, and leadership work
• Reasonable revision opportunities when educationally appropriate
• Guidance regarding scope, confidentiality, attribution, authority, and escalation
• Coordination with faculty or subject-matter advisers when approved and available
• A midpoint review or equivalent developmental checkpoint
• A final performance and learning review
• Institution-required evaluations or hour verification when previously approved and administratively feasible

The participant is expected to communicate promptly when research is unavailable, an assignment exceeds their expertise, workload becomes unmanageable, a potential conflict or authorship issue arises, or additional guidance is required.

EXPECTED OUTPUTS

Expected outputs may include:

• Master research agenda, editorial calendar, and priority schedule
• Detailed outline, research matrix, section specifications, and assignment plan
• Writing, formatting, terminology, citation, attribution, authorship, and editorial standards
• Section acceptance criteria and editorial-review checklists
• Integrated drafts of the principal pilot-focused strategy paper
• Substantive original research, writing, synthesis, and editing
• Executive summaries and approved adapted content for funding, implementation, and presentation materials
• Version, revision, authorship, contribution, source-traceability, and open-issue records
• Editorial review notes and revision instructions
• Research-gap, uncertainty, and local-validation register
• Final editorial-readiness recommendations
• A final reflection or learning summary identifying outcomes, challenges, revisions, and transferable lessons

Output scope may be adjusted according to program priorities, participant availability, educational needs, supervisory capacity, evidence quality, independent review findings, and applicable institutional requirements.

PERFORMANCE AND LEARNING ASSESSMENT

Performance will be assessed using factors such as:

• Quality, clarity, coherence, and usefulness of research and editorial work
• Ability to structure and synthesize complex multidisciplinary material
• Accuracy and transparency in attribution, authorship, versioning, and source traceability
• Ability to identify gaps, contradictions, uncertainty, scope drift, and unsupported conclusions
• Constructiveness and educational value of revision guidance
• Responsiveness to feedback and quality of revisions
• Reliability, prioritization, and timely communication
• Respect for independent evidence review and disciplinary limits
• Ethical judgment, confidentiality, cultural sensitivity, and responsible AI practices
• Documentation, file-management, and continuity discipline
• Demonstrated progress toward the stated learning objectives

The internship is developmental. Feedback or requested revision does not automatically signify failure. However, material misrepresentation, fabricated sourcing, plagiarism, concealed authorship problems, confidentiality violations, unauthorized external activity, or inability to satisfy essential participation requirements may result in narrowed duties, reassignment, suspension, or discontinuation.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

Strong candidates may include advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, recent graduates, alumni, faculty members participating in an eligible structured capacity, early-career professionals, or applicants with comparable research and editorial experience.

Exceptional juniors may be considered when supported by unusually strong writing, research, editing, synthesis, and judgment.

Strong candidates will demonstrate:

• Excellent research, writing, editing, synthesis, and organizational ability
• Experience producing or coordinating substantial academic, policy, professional, journalistic, or analytical documents
• Ability to synthesize contributions from multiple disciplines and authors
• Sound judgment concerning structure, scope, tone, emphasis, evidence, attribution, and audience
• Ability to manage deadlines and provide constructive editorial direction
• Strong attention to accuracy, consistency, authorship integrity, version control, and source traceability
• Ability to prioritize decision-critical material within limited time and capacity
• Ability to distinguish editorial readiness from independent evidence verification
• Respect for local knowledge and sensitivity to cross-cultural research and representation
• Ability to recognize personal and disciplinary limitations and request specialized review
• Reliability when working with distributed teams across institutions and time zones
• Familiarity with shared documents, citation systems, research databases, and collaborative editing tools
• Responsible use of AI-assisted tools, including disclosure, verification, attribution, and human review

Experience in public policy, international development, infrastructure, economics, political science, public administration, journalism, professional writing, publishing, law, African studies, or a related field may be helpful but is not required.

No single academic major guarantees or precludes selection. Academic standing or title alone will not substitute for availability, execution quality, communication, ethical conduct, documentation discipline, or continuity readiness.

APPLICATION MATERIALS

Applicants should submit through this Handshake posting:

• Resume or CV
• Cover letter or short statement explaining their interest and relevant research, writing, editing, synthesis, or publication experience
• One relevant writing, research, editorial, policy, analytical, or publication sample; clearly labeled classroom work is acceptable
• Availability, time zone, current location, anticipated scheduling conflicts, and any academic-credit or institutional requirements

Applicants should identify their individual contribution to collaborative work. Confidential material should not be submitted unless the applicant has authorization to share it. Redacted samples are acceptable when they still permit meaningful evaluation.

References will be requested selectively when necessary to verify experience, resolve conflicting information, or assess a sensitive responsibility.

SELECTION PROCESS

Initial evaluation will be conducted asynchronously. Applications will be reviewed for role alignment, writing and research quality, evidence of readiness, communication, availability, authorship integrity, and ability to benefit from and contribute to the educational experience.

Shortlisted candidates may complete a bounded role-specific exercise requiring them to diagnose a weak report outline and revise a short passage for logic, evidence, clarity, attribution, and executive usefulness.

The exercise is for candidate evaluation and will not be used as uncompensated production work for an active external project.

Live conversations will be reserved for finalists or situations requiring clarification. References will be requested selectively. Reasonable accommodations may be requested during the application and selection process.

ELIGIBILITY AND INSTITUTIONAL CONDITIONS

Final participation is conditional upon eligibility, documentation, supervisory capacity, confidentiality requirements, access clearance, and any applicable university, academic-credit, work-authorization, insurance, export-control, location-specific, or other program requirements.

Applicants must not begin program work until all required reviews, agreements, and approvals applicable to their participation are complete.

International participation, academic credit, and institution-sponsored participation may require additional review. Selection for the role does not override a participant’s institution, immigration status, work authorization, location-based restrictions, or other applicable requirements.

If an institution requires special documentation or terms, the request must be reviewed before participation begins. The company may approve, propose revisions to, or decline requirements that it cannot accurately represent or responsibly administer.

AUTHORSHIP, CONFIDENTIALITY, AND RESPONSIBLE TECHNOLOGY USE

Participants may receive access only to information reasonably necessary for their approved assignments. They must follow applicable confidentiality, privacy, sourcing, attribution, document-control, intellectual-property, and access instructions.

Participants must not:

• Fabricate, alter, conceal, or misrepresent sources, evidence, authorship, contributions, methods, findings, or revision status
• Submit plagiarized or improperly attributed work
• Claim sole authorship of collaborative material
• Treat AI-generated output, search snippets, or unsourced summaries as authoritative evidence
• Upload confidential, restricted, personal, or unpublished information into unapproved systems
• Share project materials, personal information, access credentials, drafts, or internal communications without authorization
• Represent estimates, assumptions, scenarios, partnerships, approvals, or draft findings as established facts
• Alter substantive conclusions merely to avoid documenting unresolved evidence or quality concerns
• Include project work in a portfolio, submit it for publication, or distribute it externally without written release approval

AI-assisted tools may be used only when permitted for the assignment. Their use must be disclosed when requested, and all material claims, citations, calculations, summaries, and outputs remain subject to human verification.

REPORTING AND AUTHORITY LIMITATIONS

The Director may coordinate approved internal assignments, establish editorial requirements, return drafts for revision, document unresolved issues, and recommend editorial readiness.

Final approval of scope, substantive conclusions, authorship treatment, public positioning, external disclosure, and publication remains with authorized program leadership. An editorial-readiness recommendation does not guarantee final approval or publication.

The Director’s work is an internal educational research and editorial function. It does not constitute legal advice, academic peer-review certification, engineering validation, financial or investment advice, accounting assurance, safety certification, regulatory approval, or any other licensed professional determination.

The Director may not independently:

• Contact government officials, universities, funders, prospective partners, media, communities, publishers, or other external stakeholders
• Submit material for publication or distribute project drafts
• Make public statements or speak on behalf of the company
• Make financial, contractual, procurement, hiring, disciplinary, or institutional commitments
• Promise authorship, publication, compensation, academic credit, or external recognition
• Represent that any government, institution, community, company, funder, or partner supports the project
• Change the approved project scope, conclusions, public position, pilot thesis, program terms, or funding request
• Override documented evidence or professional-review concerns
• Release confidential, restricted, draft, or externally controlled information
• Perform or certify legal, engineering, accounting, investment, medical, safety, cybersecurity, regulatory, or other licensed professional work

The internship does not promise travel, external representation, publication, future employment, compensation, or authority to act on behalf of Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC.