Department: IPR - INST for Policy Res
Salary/Grade: EXS/11
Job Summary:
The Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University is seeking a Director of Data & Research Partnerships to join us as a founding team member of the Early Childhood Research Alliance for Chicago (EC-REACH). The mission of EC-REACH is to unite diverse partners across sectors, agencies, and institutions to co-construct and conduct action-oriented research that promotes equitable solutions for early childhood policy and practice in Chicago. EC-REACH will develop and support a community of research-practice partnerships (RPPs) among Chicago researchers, policy makers, practitioners, community members, and families. All are committed to working together on large scale, system-level problem solving.
As a key senior team member reporting directly to the Executive Director, the Director will support EC-REACH's mission by ensuring that all research conducted and supported by EC-REACH is rigorous, responsive, equitable, collaborative, inclusive, meaningful, accessible, and useful for informing decision-making regarding early childhood systems, policies, and programs.
Specifically, the Director will shape and lead EC-REACH’s strategy for data partnerships and infrastructure, including forging stable, long-term, and mutually-beneficial partnerships with researchers, policymakers, and practitioners; building and overseeing a data management system and structure across multiple datasets; using data to answer partners’ pressing questions via rapid-response and longer-term research projects; and facilitating data access among internal and external researchers who seek to engage in a Chicago early childhood research-practice partnership.
The position is a two-year term appointment. Opportunity for renewal will be based on satisfactory performance and available funding.
For consideration, please subject a resume and cover letter with your application.
*Note: Not all aspects of the job are covered by this job description.
Link to job description on employer's website
Specific Responsibilities:
Strategy
- Set and lead EC-REACH’s strategy for building lasting research and data architecture that draws on essential contemporary open-science practices and integrates multiple datasets, including the Chicago Early Childhood Integrated Data System (CECIDS), into a more comprehensive, “research-ready” longitudinal data repository in order to reduce the administrative burden on our Chicago partners and provide access to a larger and more diverse group of researchers and analysts.
- Develop and implement an approach to data systems integration and workflow management, including managing data use agreements and access for partners within and outside the university; leading data documentation efforts (data dictionaries, codebooks); and overseeing database structure and access.
Community & Partner Engagement
- Collaborate to forge and maintain trusting, mutually beneficial relationships and partnerships with research, policy, practice, and community partners.
- Anticipate and respond to partnership challenges.
- Leverage existing routines and structures to build capacity to participate in community-engaged research and evaluation.
- Lead creative approaches to support data and evidence use to best inform stakeholder decision-making.
- Collaborate to advance EC-REACH's action-oriented research agenda with a large and diverse group of partners.
- Over time, collaborate on a strategy to continually evolve the agenda’s guidance regarding what research to prioritize and how it should be conducted in response to the rapidly changing early childhood system.
Research
- Lead implementation of the research agenda via rapid-response and longer-term research projects.
- Oversee quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method analyses, including descriptive, exploratory, and/or causal methods.
- Lead data visualization and contribute to report-writing.
- Contribute to grant writing and new, longer-term research projects as EC-REACH's research agenda evolves.
Strategic Growth
- Contribute to EC-REACH’s fundraising and strategic growth as a long-term, dynamic RPP hub that provides the infrastructure needed to conduct series of studies that build on one another and continues to grow and evolve as new partners join.
Supervisory
- Supervise 1 or more staff and/or provide work direction to others.
- Provide training and mentorship to staff and partners within and outside of EC-REACH.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Successful completion of a full course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a master's or higher degree; OR appropriate combination of education and experience.
- At least 7 years' data management, applied research, or other relevant experience.
- Technical expertise to oversee staff coding in Stata, R, Python, and/or SQL.
- Supervisory and program/project director experience required.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Degree in a field such as education, public policy, public health, statistics, psychology or a related field.
- Experience working as part of a research-practice partnership, on applied and/or community-engaged research projects or working at a community or civic organization that partners with researchers.
- Experience managing and working with different kinds of data, including large-scale quantitative data (e.g., administrative data) and qualitative data (e.g., interviews).
- Aptitude and interest in managing data flow and cleaning, especially with data with a high degree of ambiguity/complexity.
- Experience working in a large-scale early childhood system (in a sector such as education, health, and/or family services).
- Expertise in early childhood research, policy, and/or practice.
- Demonstrated track record of facilitating mutual respect and understanding among diverse stakeholders (e.g., researchers, community partners, policymakers, community-based organizations, families, etc.) through an ability to act as an honest and trusted partner.
Preferred Competencies: (Skills, knowledge, and abilities)
- Familiar with and committed to the RPP approach and facilitating the use of research evidence to drive action that improves the lives of children and families.
- Deep knowledge of Chicago’s early childhood system (including education, health, and/or family services policies, programs, improvement initiatives, and data landscapes) and of the City of Chicago more generally.
- Demonstrated aptitude for relationship and partnership development.
- Demonstrated strong aptitude for research project direction, data management, and data analysis.
- Demonstrated strong aptitude for developing and leading organization-wide strategy.
- Strong verbal and written communication skills and attention to detail.
- Big-picture, systems thinker who approaches their work strategically, analytically, and creatively.
- Comfortable with a high degree of ambiguity and thrives in a highly collaborative “start-up” environment that is rapidly evolving with many unknowns.
Benefits:
At Northwestern, we are proud to provide meaningful, competitive, high-quality health care plans, retirement benefits, tuition discounts and more! Visit us at https://www.northwestern.edu/hr/benefits/index.html to learn more.