DOCUMENTARIAN / ETHNOGRAPHER
Job Announcement
The California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA is seeking an experienced documentarian / ethnographer with a background in environmental and sustainability issues for a 20-month project starting mid-June 2016.
The overall objective of this project is to develop an advanced energy community infrastructure within the City of Claremont, CA. This infrastructure will include a set of volunteer-based subcommittees comprised of various levels of city government, as well as homeowner, realtor, business, education and faith-based community members, capable of executing and maintaining comprehensive, city-wide community engagement and deployment of education initiatives, with the goal of implementing energy efficiency upgrades, structural retrofits and installation of solar panels for existing buildings within disadvantaged communities. The project aims to effectively reach building owners to educate and engage them toward this end, as well as to aggregate energy efficiency/production products and services. Additional project elements include an assessment of local obstacles to state code implementation, through a review of local codes and ordinances, planning/building department processes, design standards, inspection procedures and enforcement policies.
The primary responsibility of the writer/ethnographer will be to record the process by which these efforts are undertaken, the results, and the lessons learned, in order to create a comprehensive set of documents that can be used to translate and replicate this model in other cities. This documentation will also serve as the basis for presentations and journal articles by the project team. This may include guidebooks, “roadmaps,” brochures, videography, graphic representations, short biographies of participants, storytelling, timelines, and reference materials.
This work will be accomplished through close collaboration with other team members, including “shadowing” and interviews, participation in team meetings and community meetings, as well as through independent research as needed. The job will require at least weekly travel to the city of Claremont, CA (mileage reimbursement is provided in addition to salary).
The successful applicant will function as a critical member of the project team, contributing to the conceptualization of documentation deliverables in order to best achieve the overall goals of the project. Draft and final products will need to be developed on a rapid turnaround time to meet strictly prescribed project deliverable due dates.
Skills/Experience:
• Outstanding writing and graphic design skills, effective in clearly communicating complex information to a range of audiences.
• Experience interviewing and documenting social networks and government processes related to environmental / sustainability issues.
• Advanced degree in a related field preferred
• Excellent organizational, communication and interpersonal skills
• Able to professionally represent UCLA and the project team in government and community settings
• Must be able to work collaboratively and congenially within a team setting
• High level of fluency in word processing and presentation software – MS Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) and Adobe InDesign.
Applicants should provide a cover letter / statement of interest, CV, full contact information for at least 3 references, and examples of previous work.
This position comes with full UCLA benefits.
