Research Analyst

RESEARCH ANALYST 

ABOUT MORSBY, GORMAN, MCCARTHY LLC

Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC is developing Project Guardian as a multidisciplinary, project-based initiative focused on infrastructure planning, implementation readiness, policy research, partnership development, evidence management, risk analysis, communications, and program coordination.

Project Guardian’s initial work centers on a proposed Kenya-focused infrastructure pilot. Participants will contribute to research, planning, analysis, documentation, and professional-quality project materials intended to help clarify the pilot’s feasibility, evidentiary foundation, funding requirements, implementation conditions, and potential pathways toward responsible replication or expansion.

Participation does not represent employment by, appointment to, or endorsement from any government, university, funder, development institution, community, or prospective partner. Project Guardian is an independent initiative of Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC unless a separate written agreement states otherwise.

PROGRAM TERMS

• Program dates: October 19, 2026–January 29, 2027
• Holiday pause: December 19, 2026–January 3, 2027, during which no routine work is expected
• Fully remote and asynchronous-first
• Normally 5–10 hours per week
• Work exceeding 10 hours in a week requires advance written approval
• Participants should not ordinarily exceed approximately 15 hours in any week
• Unpaid educational internship
• Academic credit may be available only when approved by the participant’s institution
• No promise or expectation of future employment
• Reasonable academic and accessibility accommodations will be considered
• Participation is subject to applicable confidentiality, data-handling, authorship, attribution, acceptable-use, and release requirements

EDUCATIONAL STRUCTURE

This is a structured, project-based learning experience. Participants receive defined learning objectives, supervised assignments, written or documented feedback, revision opportunities, and exposure to multidisciplinary infrastructure, public policy, applied research, evidence synthesis, comparative analysis, and program-management work.

Assignments are designed to develop transferable professional competencies through applied work of educational value. Participants may produce portfolio-appropriate materials, excerpts, or descriptions subject to confidentiality, intellectual-property, attribution, data-protection, and release requirements. Inclusion of any project research, evidence matrix, memorandum, dataset description, screenshot, or deliverable in a portfolio requires prior written authorization.

Academic credit may be available only when approved by the participant’s institution. Participants are responsible for initiating and satisfying their institution’s credit-approval process. Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC will reasonably cooperate with legitimate institutional documentation, learning-agreement, supervision, evaluation, and verification requirements when provided with sufficient notice.

Academic credit is not guaranteed and is not required for participation. The availability, amount, classification, and conditions of credit are determined solely by the participant’s institution.

The internship is intended to complement academic study and professional development. Participants will not displace regular employees or independently perform human-subjects research or functions requiring licensed legal, engineering, accounting, financial, medical, regulatory, or other specialized professional judgment.

ROLE PURPOSE

The Research Analyst supports Project Guardian by converting defined research questions into organized, source-supported analysis.

The analyst may investigate infrastructure, policy, governance, implementation, economic, institutional, partnership, funding, social, environmental, operational, or comparative questions relevant to the proposed Kenya-centered pilot.

Assignments may include literature reviews, evidence scans, comparative analyses, policy and institutional research, source verification, evidence-gap assessments, annotated bibliographies, research memoranda, and contributions to larger project documents.

This is a hands-on contributor internship, not an independent investigator, spokesperson, or senior research-management position. Formal supervisory experience is not required.

Analysts will receive defined research questions, source and documentation expectations, supervisory feedback, revision opportunities, and progressively more complex assignments where supported by demonstrated readiness and educational value.

The analyst may support one or more Project Guardian workstreams. Placement and assignments will depend on participant interests, demonstrated skills, learning objectives, available supervision, project priorities, and confidentiality requirements.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

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

• Translate a broad topic into a bounded and answerable research question
• Develop an appropriate research plan for a supervised desk-research assignment
• Distinguish primary, secondary, tertiary, and derivative sources
• Evaluate sources for authority, relevance, methodology, recency, geographic applicability, bias, and limitations
• Conduct structured literature, policy, institutional, and comparative research
• Develop evidence matrices, annotated bibliographies, source registers, and research notes
• Synthesize multiple sources without obscuring disagreement, uncertainty, or important limitations
• Distinguish verified facts, source claims, analytical inferences, assumptions, scenarios, and recommendations
• Identify evidence gaps and questions requiring local, technical, legal, financial, or other specialist validation
• Apply consistent citation, quotation, attribution, and research-traceability practices
• Explain why country-level evidence may not establish local or site-specific conditions
• Recognize ethical limitations concerning human-subjects research, privacy, consent, cultural representation, and stakeholder outreach
• Present research findings in clear, concise, audience-appropriate formats
• Incorporate supervisory and editorial feedback into revised research products
• Collaborate with multidisciplinary participants while respecting disciplinary and professional boundaries

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

Research Scoping and Planning

• Translate approved topics into bounded research questions, subquestions, search concepts, and proposed outputs
• Clarify the intended audience, decision context, geographic scope, timeframe, and required level of confidence
• Identify relevant terminology, synonyms, institutions, sectors, and source categories
• Develop proportionate research plans that can be completed within the assigned time
• Define what the assignment can and cannot reasonably establish
• Identify questions likely to require local knowledge, field validation, proprietary information, or qualified professional review
• Confirm source, citation, confidentiality, and deliverable requirements before beginning substantive work
• Revisit the research plan when evidence materially changes the question or reveals an important limitation

Source Identification and Evaluation

• Locate relevant government, intergovernmental, academic, institutional, technical, legal, financial, nonprofit, industry, and other credible sources
• Prioritize authoritative primary sources where reasonably available
• Record titles, authors, publishers, publication dates, links, access dates, document identifiers, and relevant source context
• Evaluate each material source for authority, methodology, evidence quality, recency, relevance, geographic applicability, and potential bias
• Distinguish official documents from commentary, advocacy, marketing, news coverage, summaries, and unsourced online material
• Identify broken links, outdated documents, unclear provenance, inconsistent versions, and inaccessible supporting evidence
• Trace important secondary-source claims to their cited underlying evidence where feasible
• Avoid treating search-engine summaries, automated answers, or database snippets as substitutes for reviewing the underlying source
• Document meaningful inclusion and exclusion decisions

Literature and Evidence Reviews

• Conduct structured reviews of relevant academic and applied literature
• Summarize research questions, methods, populations, locations, findings, limitations, and applicability
• Identify areas of agreement, disagreement, uncertainty, and insufficient evidence
• Avoid presenting the number of located sources as proof of evidentiary strength
• Distinguish peer review, institutional review, editorial review, and publication from proof that a claim is universally correct
• Identify whether findings are descriptive, correlational, causal, modeled, projected, or qualitative
• Note material differences in definitions, data periods, methodologies, and study contexts
• Develop concise synthesis products that preserve important nuance
• Identify gaps suitable for additional research or specialist review

Policy, Institutional, and Regulatory Research

• Research relevant public institutions, mandates, policies, strategies, programs, frameworks, and published procedures
• Use current official materials wherever reasonably available
• Distinguish enacted law, proposed legislation, regulations, policy statements, strategies, guidance, institutional practice, and commentary
• Record jurisdiction, effective date, issuing authority, amendment status, and known limitations
• Avoid providing legal interpretations or representing desk research as legal advice
• Identify issues requiring review by qualified legal, regulatory, procurement, tax, or policy professionals
• Avoid assuming that a national framework operates identically across counties, agencies, sectors, or local contexts
• Clearly identify uncertainty concerning current practice, implementation, enforcement, or institutional responsibility

Comparative and Jurisdictional Analysis

• Conduct supervised comparisons among programs, projects, institutions, jurisdictions, technologies, or implementation models
• Develop explicit comparison criteria before drawing conclusions
• Document differences in geography, population, infrastructure, governance, funding, scale, timeframe, and available capacity
• Identify which features may be transferable, which require adaptation, and which are not comparable
• Avoid describing another project as a precedent when material differences limit its relevance
• Avoid ranking countries, communities, or institutions using arbitrary or culturally inappropriate assumptions
• Present comparisons as decision-support tools rather than proof that one model will succeed elsewhere

Kenya-Focused Research and Contextual Integrity

• Research Kenya-specific infrastructure, institutional, policy, economic, geographic, development, and implementation considerations relevant to assigned questions
• Prioritize credible Kenyan, regional, African, governmental, academic, professional, and locally grounded sources where available
• Distinguish national, county, municipal, community, sectoral, and site-specific conditions
• Avoid treating Kenya or Africa as a single uniform social, political, economic, cultural, or infrastructure context
• Identify where desk research requires confirmation through appropriate local expertise, consultation, field evidence, or official information
• Represent Kenyan institutions, communities, stakeholders, knowledge, and decision-making authority accurately and respectfully
• Avoid deficit-based, extractive, paternalistic, stereotypical, or decontextualized framing
• Avoid implying consultation, consent, endorsement, participation, or partnership that has not occurred or been confirmed
• Clearly state when evidence originates outside Kenya and explain its limitations

Evidence Matrices and Research Traceability

• Develop and maintain source registers, evidence matrices, annotated bibliographies, and research logs
• Connect material claims to their supporting sources
• Record relevant quotations, page numbers, tables, figures, definitions, and methodological notes
• Distinguish direct evidence from interpretation, extrapolation, and recommendation
• Assign appropriate confidence or limitation notes under supervision
• Identify claims supported by a single source, indirect evidence, outdated evidence, or conflicting evidence
• Coordinate with the Evidence and Quality Assurance Lead on verification standards and disputed claims
• Coordinate with the Knowledge and Data-Room Manager on source organization, metadata, versions, and controlled records
• Preserve enough context for an authorized reviewer to reproduce or evaluate the research path

Analysis and Synthesis

• Organize findings according to the approved research question and decision context
• Compare sources and explain material agreement, disagreement, uncertainty, or methodological differences
• Distinguish what the evidence establishes from what it merely suggests
• Avoid false precision, unsupported causal claims, and conclusions broader than the evidence permits
• Identify assumptions underlying analytical judgments
• Explain important limitations and alternative interpretations
• Develop proportionate conclusions and clearly bounded recommendations where requested
• Avoid omitting contrary evidence solely because it complicates a preferred narrative
• Submit work for supervisory, evidentiary, and editorial review as appropriate

Research Writing and Deliverable Support

• Draft research memoranda, evidence summaries, policy briefs, comparative analyses, annotated bibliographies, literature reviews, and report sections
• Use clear organization, accurate terminology, appropriate citations, and audience-conscious language
• Define specialized terms when necessary
• Preserve material qualifications and source limitations
• Separate background, findings, analysis, implications, recommendations, and unresolved questions
• Coordinate with the Chief Research and Editorial Director on editorial standards and document integration
• Coordinate with the Communications and Design Integration Lead when findings are translated into visual or public-facing formats
• Revise substantive work in response to documented feedback
• Maintain appropriate version, attribution, and approval information

Research-Gap and Validation Planning

• Identify missing evidence, outdated data, unresolved contradictions, unavailable local information, and questions outside the assignment’s scope
• Explain why each material gap matters
• Recommend proportionate next steps such as additional desk research, dataset analysis, local consultation, technical review, legal review, field validation, or deferral
• Distinguish information that is desirable from information necessary for a particular decision
• Avoid proposing unnecessary or intrusive data collection
• Identify potential ethical, privacy, consent, safety, cultural, logistical, or institutional requirements before recommending primary research
• Route proposed interviews, surveys, focus groups, observations, or other human-participant activities for prior review and authorization

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Support research needs across policy, implementation, funding, evidence, risk, data, communications, and technical workstreams
• Clarify the question and intended use before beginning cross-functional research
• Communicate material findings, limitations, and source concerns promptly
• Avoid changing another workstream’s substantive conclusions without review
• Resolve routine citation or documentation questions collaboratively
• Escalate material conflicts in evidence, methodology, interpretation, or scope
• Maintain usable handoff notes when responsibility for an assignment changes
• Contribute substantive individual work while respecting the ownership and contributions of others

SUPERVISION, FEEDBACK, AND REVISION

The Research Analyst will receive assignments, guidance, and feedback from designated project or workstream leadership.

Research standards and major analytical questions may be coordinated through the Chief Research and Editorial Director. Evidence-verification expectations may be coordinated with the Evidence and Quality Assurance Lead. Overall operational coordination remains with the Deputy Program and Operations Manager.

The educational workflow is expected to include:

• Initial orientation to Project Guardian’s scope, objectives, research standards, information classes, and limitations
• Defined assignments connected to the role’s learning objectives
• Access to appropriate source guidance, templates, examples, and project context
• Scheduled or milestone-based supervisory review
• Written, annotated, or otherwise documented feedback
• Opportunities to ask questions and clarify expectations
• Reasonable opportunities to revise substantive work
• Progressively more complex assignments where supported by demonstrated readiness
• Periodic reflection on professional development and learning progress
• A final review or evaluation where appropriate

Feedback may address research design, source selection, evidentiary reasoning, contextual awareness, analytical structure, citation quality, accuracy, clarity, limitations, ethical judgment, professional communication, and the participant’s ability to incorporate revisions.

EXPECTED EDUCATIONAL OUTPUTS

Depending on project needs, participant readiness, workstream placement, source availability, and supervisory direction, outputs may include:

• Bounded research plans and research-question frameworks
• Search strategies and terminology lists
• Source registers and annotated bibliographies
• Literature and evidence reviews
• Evidence matrices and claim-to-source maps
• Policy and institutional research summaries
• Comparative or jurisdictional analyses
• Kenya-context research memoranda
• Program, project, or case-study profiles
• Evidence-gap and validation-needs assessments
• Research limitations and unresolved-question logs
• Fact-checking and source-verification records
• Briefing notes and decision-support summaries
• Report sections and supporting appendices
• Research handoff and reproducibility notes
• Substantive original research, analysis, and writing

Outputs are educational and developmental materials. Their production does not guarantee that they will be adopted, externally distributed, published, implemented, or used to make final project decisions.

PERFORMANCE AND LEARNING ASSESSMENT

Progress may be assessed according to:

• Clarity and appropriateness of research questions
• Quality, authority, diversity, and relevance of sources
• Accuracy and completeness of source documentation
• Ability to distinguish evidence, source claims, inference, assumptions, scenarios, and recommendations
• Quality of synthesis and comparative reasoning
• Transparency concerning uncertainty, contradictory evidence, and information gaps
• Appropriate treatment of geographic and institutional context
• Respect for Kenyan institutions, communities, knowledge, and stakeholder authority
• Accuracy and clarity of research writing
• Compliance with citation, attribution, confidentiality, and responsible-tool requirements
• Appropriate identification of questions requiring local or specialist validation
• Ability to receive, evaluate, and incorporate feedback
• Reliability in meeting agreed milestones or communicating constraints early
• Effectiveness in multidisciplinary collaboration
• Growth against the stated learning objectives

Assessment is intended to support learning and program administration. It is not a licensed professional examination, academic degree, research credential, or certification in policy, law, engineering, finance, statistics, or any other professional field.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

Candidates may be undergraduate or graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, recent graduates, alumni, or early-career professionals. Relevant classroom, volunteer, internship, military, community, entrepreneurial, or professional experience may be considered. No single academic major is required.

Relevant academic areas may include public policy, public administration, political science, international relations, international development, economics, sociology, geography, history, business, infrastructure planning, environmental studies, engineering, data analysis, communications, or related interdisciplinary fields.

Strong candidates will demonstrate:

• Strong research, critical-reading, analytical, organizational, and written-communication skills
• Ability to develop or refine bounded research questions
• Ability to identify, evaluate, compare, and document credible sources
• Ability to synthesize complex information without overstating certainty
• Comfort identifying conflicting evidence, methodological limitations, and unanswered questions
• Familiarity with citations, research databases, shared documents, spreadsheets, or evidence-management tools
• Ability to work independently on defined assignments while communicating when guidance is needed
• Respect for cultural context, local knowledge, disciplinary boundaries, and legitimate stakeholder authority
• Willingness to document methods, accept feedback, and revise substantive work
• Reliability when collaborating across disciplines and time zones

Prior experience relating to Kenya, Africa, infrastructure, international development, policy analysis, applied research, or evidence synthesis may be helpful but is not required.

Applicants are not expected to possess a professional license, formal supervisory experience, or prior infrastructure-sector employment.

APPLICATION MATERIALS

Applicants should submit through Handshake:

• A current résumé
• A cover letter explaining their interest in Project Guardian and describing relevant research, policy, analytical, academic, or transferable experience
• One relevant work sample, such as a research paper, policy brief, literature review, evidence synthesis, comparative analysis, annotated bibliography, research presentation, or comparable academic, professional, volunteer, or independent work

Applicants should remove or redact confidential, proprietary, personally identifiable, restricted, privileged, or third-party information from submitted samples.

If the applicant’s strongest work was completed collaboratively, the applicant should briefly identify their individual contribution.

A prior professional work sample is not required. Academic, volunteer, independent, simulated, or appropriately redacted work is acceptable.

SELECTION PROCESS

Initial screening will be asynchronous. Applications will be assessed based on demonstrated alignment, research readiness, source judgment, analytical reasoning, communication quality, learning potential, and the relevance of submitted materials.

Finalists may be invited to complete a brief, time-limited educational evaluation exercise using hypothetical or publicly available information. The exercise may ask the applicant to evaluate several sources, develop a short evidence matrix, distinguish findings from assumptions, or prepare a concise research summary identifying material limitations.

Any selection exercise will be designed solely to evaluate the applicant’s reasoning and communication. It will not involve actual confidential project information, be used as uncompensated production work, or be incorporated into Project Guardian deliverables without separate written permission and appropriate arrangements.

Live conversations will be limited to finalists or circumstances requiring clarification. References may be requested selectively. Reasonable accommodations are available during the selection process.

Priority application deadline: October 2, 2026. The posting may close earlier or later based on application volume, institutional review timing, or program needs.

HUMAN-SUBJECTS AND EXTERNAL-RESEARCH LIMITATIONS

Unless separately authorized through an appropriate written process, this internship is limited to supervised desk research using approved public, licensed, internally authorized, or otherwise appropriately available sources.

The analyst may not independently:

• Conduct interviews, surveys, focus groups, experiments, observations, or other human-participant research
• Recruit research participants
• Contact communities, government officials, institutions, funders, partners, subject-matter experts, or other external parties
• Collect sensitive or personally identifiable information
• Record individuals or meetings
• Offer compensation or make commitments to prospective research participants
• Represent an activity as university-approved, institutionally reviewed, or exempt from review
• Determine independently that institutional review, ethical review, consent, or local authorization is unnecessary

Any proposed primary-research activity requires advance authorization and evaluation of applicable ethical, institutional, legal, privacy, consent, safeguarding, cultural, and data-management requirements.

ELIGIBILITY AND INSTITUTIONAL CONDITIONS

Applicants must be able to participate remotely during the stated program period and communicate reliably in an asynchronous-first environment.

Students seeking academic credit must contact their institution and initiate any required approval, registration, learning-agreement, or internship-verification process. Institutional approval and academic credit are not guaranteed.

Where required, participation may be conditioned on completion of appropriate institutional documentation, confidentiality agreements, information-handling acknowledgments, intellectual-property terms, conflict disclosures, acceptable-use requirements, or other reasonable program documentation.

International students and other applicants are responsible for confirming with their institution or qualified adviser whether participation is consistent with applicable academic, immigration, authorization, funding, or institutional requirements. Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC does not provide immigration, visa, tax, legal, or employment-authorization advice.

CONFIDENTIALITY, ATTRIBUTION, AND RESPONSIBLE TOOL USE

Participants may encounter confidential, preliminary, proprietary, sensitive, or access-controlled information. Such information may be used only for authorized program purposes and handled according to applicable instructions.

Participants must:

• Protect confidential, personal, proprietary, and restricted information
• Use only authorized systems, accounts, storage locations, databases, and transfer methods
• Access only materials reasonably necessary for assigned work
• Avoid uploading confidential, personal, proprietary, licensed, or restricted materials to unapproved third-party platforms
• Preserve citations, source records, research notes, review history, and version information
• Distinguish original work from quoted, paraphrased, adapted, collaborative, translated, or tool-assisted material
• Disclose material use of generative artificial intelligence, machine translation, or other automated tools when requested
• Independently verify factual claims, quotations, translations, calculations, citations, and source interpretations
• Avoid fabricating sources, quotations, data, institutions, stakeholder views, events, approvals, or findings
• Obtain approval before externally sharing project materials or including them in a portfolio
• Report suspected confidentiality, access, integrity, attribution, or information-handling problems promptly

Automated tools may support learning, brainstorming, search-term development, organization, analysis, or drafting only when permitted. They may not replace the participant’s critical reading, source review, contextual judgment, confidentiality obligations, or responsibility for submitted work.

Automated summaries and citations must be checked against the underlying source. Restricted information may not be entered into public or unauthorized artificial-intelligence systems.

PROFESSIONAL AND REGULATORY LIMITATIONS

This internship does not authorize the participant to provide or represent that they are providing legal, engineering, accounting, financial, medical, regulatory, statistical, procurement, or other licensed professional advice or certification.

Research plans, source reviews, comparative analyses, policy summaries, and recommendations are educational research and decision-support materials. They are not legal opinions, engineering determinations, audited findings, investment recommendations, regulatory interpretations, official government positions, or guarantees of feasibility, funding, compliance, implementation, or performance.

Questions requiring specialized professional judgment must be identified and routed for qualified review.

REPORTING AND AUTHORITY

The analyst will receive assignments and feedback from designated project or workstream leadership. Research standards may be coordinated through the Chief Research and Editorial Director, while evidence-verification matters may be coordinated with the Evidence and Quality Assurance Lead.

The analyst may:

• Complete approved internal desk-research, analysis, and writing assignments
• Develop research plans, source registers, evidence matrices, and memoranda
• Request clarification and authorized project information
• Identify evidence gaps, conflicting sources, limitations, and questions requiring further review
• Recommend additional authorized research or specialist validation
• Collaborate with assigned internal participants
• Revise work in response to documented feedback

The analyst may not independently:

• Conduct human-subjects or external stakeholder research
• Contact government officials, communities, institutions, funders, partners, experts, or other external parties
• Publish, distribute, or release project materials
• Issue public statements
• Make legal, financial, employment, procurement, partnership, technical, or contractual commitments
• Represent the company, project, university, or any institution externally
• Approve final technical, financial, legal, policy, or stakeholder conclusions
• Access information beyond what is authorized for assigned work
• Promise funding, partnership, implementation, academic credit, employment, publication, or any project outcome
• Authorize another participant to exercise any of these powers

Final decisions concerning research scope, external contact, publication, institutional representation, resource commitments, and project conclusions remain with authorized program leadership and, where necessary, qualified professionals.

All external outreach, research participation, submissions, representations, commitments, and releases require prior authorization.

EQUAL CONSIDERATION AND ACCOMMODATIONS

Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC intends to consider applicants based on role-related qualifications, demonstrated readiness, learning potential, and program needs. Reasonable accommodations may be requested for the application process or internship experience.

Applicants are encouraged to describe relevant academic, professional, volunteer, military, community, entrepreneurial, caregiving, independent, or lived experience when it demonstrates transferable skills applicable to the role.