Research Coordinator 2 Jobs

The Stanford Center on Early Childhood (SCEC), directed by Dr. Philip Fisher within the Stanford Accelerator for Learning in the GSE seeks a full time Research Coordinator 2 (RC2) to join our team. The RC2 will have a dual-role, with a portion of their time dedicated to Center-wide support, and the remaining time focused on the CIRCLE Framework .

ABOUT US

The Stanford University Graduate School of Education (GSE) is a top-ranked school of education, known for its prestigious faculty, rigorous graduate degree programs, and its impact on the quality of education across the world. The GSE is committed to developing leaders in education research, practice and policy. Our community includes over 60 faculty, 400 students, 200 staff, 14,000 alumni and countless people from the local and global communities we work with and impact. The work environment is dynamic, deadline-driven, fast-paced, and energetic.

The core mission of the SCEC is to listen to communities by identifying and gathering evidence on their most pressing challenges, rapidly respond by mobilizing research tools to offer solutions, and convene allies to refine, evaluate, and scale promising approaches. One of the SCEC’s core areas of work is the CIRCLE framework (Continuous Improvement & Rapid Cycle Learning Evaluations). The CIRCLE framework is grounded in a novel and innovative Theory of Impact approach, established by Dr. Fisher and colleagues. The framework supports early-child programs and systems to get clarity about their strategies (i.e. their actions; what they are directly doing) and the resulting domino effect on targets (i.e. immediate impacts of their strategies) and longer-term outcomes. The framework uses a rapid cycle approach to learning, which offers an alternative to randomized controlled trial evaluations that is much more nimble, flexible, and fast-paced.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Research Coordinator 2 will be assigned to the SCEC’s emerging work areas, which pulls assets of our existing work into new areas such as integrating health care systems with early childhood systems, developing integrated data repositories for early childhood, establishing partnerships with communities to house their data and be able to answer local communities and leaders research and evaluations needs, and project management with new work areas that will be developed through our soon to be announced operating model called Early Childhood X. In addition to the emerging work areas, the RC2 will have the opportunity to participate in the SCEC’s continuous activities aimed at fostering a positive team culture and staff cohesiveness.

The RC2 in this role will be trained in the SCEC’s CIRCLE Framework. Using this framework, they will develop and sustain relationships with external partners receiving consultation from the CIRCLE team, specifically community-based, governmental, and philanthropic organizations in the early childhood sector. The RC2 will act as a co-facilitator for workshops focusing on developing and implementing the CIRCLE Framework, as well as distilling output from workshops into evaluation and learning activities. The RC2 will support the logistics of data collection, including the creation and implementation of Qualtrics surveys and may also co-lead focus groups to collect qualitative data. The RC2 will also support data analysis, for example coding qualitative data, and data visualization. The RC2 can expect to learn and continuously improve their skills related to program evaluation, data management, relationship-building, and project management.

This role will provide high-level support to projects with minimal supervision, exercising independent judgment to accomplish tasks. This position will communicate with external entities including drafting reports to funders, maintaining relationships with partner organizations, and building a learning network among partner communities. This position will help develop and document processes and procedures for the work within each specialization.

A successful candidate will have strong communication skills and a commitment to enhancing program and research impact in the field of early childhood. This position requires working with all levels of our constituents, so it is important to demonstrate professional decorum as well as an ability to communicate scientific information and build relationships across broad audiences. This position requires flexibility and creative thinking as well as a strong background in early childhood research. This is a hybrid position, although remote work may be considered for the right candidate.

Given the SCEC’s commitment to inclusion, equity, and representation, the selection process will prioritize those who have been historically excluded from staff positions in academic environments, especially people of Color, including those who identify as Black, Indigenous, Asian, Latine, Pacific Islanders, and other people of Color.

Your primary responsibilities will include:

• Assist in designing research projects, exercising independent initiative and judgment gained from completing a variety of high-level assignments, including activities such as defining variables, formulating hypotheses, and selecting subjects, sources of information, or planning and coordinating research protocols.

• Adapt or work out the details of new, nonstandard procedures, with the supervisor providing general guidance and suggestions.

• Contribute to interpreting, synthesizing, and analyzing quantitative and/or qualitative data using scientific or statistical techniques.

• Solve problems and make decisions that affect the direction of the research and result in independent contributions to the overall project.

• Co-author sections of research publications and regulatory reports as needed.

• Supervise staff or students as needed, including oversight and instruction on techniques, as well as consultation on project work.