Overview

Fairer Fields exists to make agriculture more humane for all by accelerating better agricultural practices for animals, people, and the world. We are currently working to:

1. Develop and implement more humane insecticides and insecticide alternatives.
2. Conduct research to identify promising new ways to help animals and people impacted by plant agriculture, especially in areas such as pollination services, biological control, or mechanized harvesting.

We’re hiring a Researcher to help coordinate academic research and conduct desk research on insecticides and insect anesthetics.

Applications for this role are now open, and being reviewed on a rolling basis. Apply here.

About Fairer Fields

Fairer Fields is a new organization, working to address the impacts of plant agriculture on animal and human welfare. Our current focus is on moving US agriculture to more humane insecticide practices. However, we also conduct and fund prioritization and scientific research on other topics, such as mechanized harvesting, pollination services, and biological control.

Fairer Fields is small: this hire, along with the Program Associate we are also hiring for, will bring our staff to 3. We expect to remain under 10 total staff for the next year. We aim to have a culture that fosters individual agency and accountability, with a high degree of focus on near-term, specific goals. As you progress through the hiring process, we’ll share more about the culture we’re working to build as an organization, and the working norms we plan to follow.

About the Role

The Researcher role will be responsible for:

• Coordinating external research via contracts and grants.
• The Researcher will coordinate a significant amount of external research, and in many cases, design research projects to be carried out at external labs.
• This research is currently primarily related to insecticides, insect anesthetics, and agricultural science.
• Summarizing and interpreting existing research on insecticides, insect neuroscience, animal welfare, and related topics.
• Meeting with and interviewing relevant outside experts in areas like plant agriculture, insect physiology, insecticide production, and more.
• Travel to relevant academic conferences to build relationships and understand the landscape.
• Producing internal (and potentially external) reports and models to help inform our work.

This role will have relatively little opportunity to publish academically or publicly, and this position is likely not suited for candidates primarily interested in turning their research into public outputs — while much of our work might be adaptable for academic publication, our priority is on internal research. However, the role will likely involve making significant academic grants, many of which might lead to published research.

Other Details:

• Time Commitment: Part- or full-time (at least 20 hours per week)
• Location: Remote, anywhere in the US, with flexible working hours
• We’re open to considering candidates outside the US, but are primarily considering US-based applicants
• Salary: $75,000-$110,000 USD annually.
• Benefits: 13 holidays and flexible leave
• We’re a new organization, but in the near future we intend to also add:
• Health insurance
• 401k with employer contribution
• Travel: Required 4-6 times per year

Hiring Process

1. Submit an application.
2. We’ll invite qualified applicants to complete a 30 minute screening interview.
3. Finalists will be invited to a longer, paid multi-hour hour trial and reference check.

We’re aiming to give all candidates an update on their application in no more than 1 week.

Applications for this role are now open, and being reviewed on a rolling basis. Apply here.

We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.

About You

We’re open to many profiles and backgrounds for this role, and while we expect academic experience in entomology, agricultural science, animal welfare, or ecology will be especially relevant.

The ideal candidate has the following characteristics:

• A strong demonstrated ability to understand and interpret research in at least two of the following areas:
• Entomology
• Agricultural science
• Animal welfare
• Ecology
• Comfort with uncertainty and the ability to translate their uncertainty to models.
• We will not quickly resolve the biggest uncertainties this project faces. The ideal candidate will be comfortable with that, and comfortable making calibrated, careful recommendations despite that uncertainty.
• Experience designing relevant scientific experiments.
• A significant amount of our work will involve designing scientific experiments that are run via contract labs. The Researcher will need to be able to contribute to the design of these studies, and be able to evaluate their results.
• A high degree of reasoning transparency in their writing.
• Our work depends on our ability to communicate transparently and clearly about our reasoning and confidence internally, so we’re looking for candidates able to communicate in this style.
• A willingness to explore open ended questions, even if they might not lead to useful results.
• We expect that what we are doing is hard, and the next few years will be rife with disappointing outcomes and results. This work involves exploring open-ended, difficult questions, and requires being resilient to these disappointments when they arise.
• Comfort working in an environment that requires a high degree of agency and personal accountability.
• Fairer Fields operating model and small size require staff who are comfortable managing their own time, and acting with a high degree of agency. We have minimal management and supervision internally — this means you’ll often be responsible for driving your own results.
• Comfort with moving quickly when necessary, and working on ambitious goals.
• We work in a highly goal-driven manner, often on fairly quick turnaround times — the ideal candidate will work well under these constraints.
• A high degree of conscientiousness and carefulness in research.
• We’re trying to do something quite difficult with our work. This requires being careful and ensuring we meet a high quality bar.

Finding someone with all of these traits is ideal, but we will consider all candidates with relevant backgrounds. If you think you might be a good fit but don’t meet all our ideal characteristics, we encourage you to apply regardless