Behavioural Data Science Consultant, GPD/Social and Behaviour Change, 11 months, CoE Nairobi, Kenya (Remote0 #593159

BEHAVIOURAL DATA SCIENCE CONSULTANT, GPD/SOCIAL AND BEHAVIOUR CHANGE, 11 MONTHS, CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE NAIROBI, KENYA (REMOTE) United Nations Children's Fund About the Role Are you ready to tackle one of global health's most pressing challenges? UNICEF is seeking a Behavioural Data Science Consultant to join our Centre of Excellence in Nairobi for an 11-month engagement focused on a groundbreaking initiative in social and behaviour change. The opportunity addresses a critical gap in health communication: traditional expert-designed health messages often fail to resonate with adolescents on sensitive topics like HPV vaccination. Cultural beliefs, peer influence, and misinformation prove far more influential than standard recommendations. Recent research from the Mercury Project demonstrates that when communities craft their own health messages, these crowd-sourced communications outperform standard campaigns by up to 50%. This project will establish a systematic, evidence-based methodology for developing and testing community-generated peer-to-peer messaging to increase HPV vaccination uptake among adolescents in Uganda and Kenya. Your Impact You will lead the complete data science workflow for this transformative study, which integrates community message generation, AI-powered clustering, message refinement, crowd forecasting, and randomized controlled trials. Your responsibilities will include designing and implementing robust data pipelines, developing and validating natural language processing models, and conducting rigorous experimental analytics. Specifically, you will manage large-scale text data processing involving 11,000+ responses, execute natural language processing and clustering methodologies, support LLM-assisted message generation, provide experimental design guidance with statistical analysis, and integrate behavioural and administrative datasets into the research framework. What You'll Need Education: Master's degree in data science, statistics, computer science, economics, or a related field Experience: At least 5 years in applied data science and behavioural science Core Competencies: - Advanced proficiency in natural language processing, Bayesian statistics, and text analytics with large datasets - Demonstrated expertise conducting randomized controlled trials and experimental methods - Strong command of applied data science and behavioural science principles, theories, and models - Coding proficiency in Python (preferred) or R, with competency in NLP libraries such as Hugging Face and spaCy - Proven experience working with large, real-world datasets - Fluent English (spoken and written) Preferred Qualifications: - Background in global health, immunization programmes, or behavioural science - Professional experience in Sub-Saharan African contexts - Familiarity with platforms such as RapidPro or U-Report - Track record integrating artificial intelligence and large language models into applied research Our Commitment to You UNICEF operates across more than 190 countries and territories, driving meaningful change for children and their communities. We champion diverse, passionate careers built on our core values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability. We provide competitive compensation, comprehensive benefits, and robust professional development opportunities that foster purpose-driven work. UNICEF actively welcomes applicants of all backgrounds and is committed to fostering an inclusive workplace. We encourage applications from individuals regardless of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic background, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or socio-economic background. We provide reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process and beyond. UNICEF maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual exploitation, abuse, harassment, discrimination, and any conduct inconsistent with United Nations and UNICEF objectives. All candidates undergo thorough background checks and reference verification. UNICEF does not charge any processing fees at any recruitment stage and will never request bank account information. Application Instructions Submit the following documents via the UNICEF Talent Management System (TMS): - Updated TMS profile and comprehensive curriculum vitae - Cover letter - Separate financial proposal (see reference document TMC0002327 Financial proposal.docx) Note: If documents are not visible on certain platforms, visit the official UNICEF Vacancies page. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted to proceed to subsequent selection stages.