The University of Washington’s Information School is seeking an Assistant to the Associate Dean for Research to provide complex, confidential administrative support to the Associate Dean for Research (ADR) and coordination of Research Services activities. This role requires the Assistant to the Associate Dean to understand the unit’s responsibilities and relationships and to manage and facilitate the work of the Office of the ADR in areas including workflow, communications, policy, and procedures. The Assistant is essential to maintaining a fluid office environment that responds to the changing needs and foci of research in the Information School.

The Assistant is expected to be proactive in applying their special expertise or talents, speak up when they identify opportunities or concerns, and lead by taking actions that exemplify the Associate Dean for Research and the iSchool’s core leadership values. This leadership may be expressed in diverse ways, reflecting the variety of styles and cultures that are represented by iSchool faculty and staff.

What you’ll be doing:
Administrative support for Associate Dean for Research:

Provide primary administrative support to the ADR, requiring a high level of discretion and independent decision making, to ensure effectiveness in the ADR’s areas of responsibility.

• Serve as the initial point of contact for all inquiries to the Office of the Associate Dean for Research.  Attend to requests not requiring the specific attention of the Associate Dean. Monitor activities and communication, and assist with prioritizing time sensitive issues and responding to all requests in a timely matter.
• Prepare and manage regular Research Services meeting agendas, presentation materials, spreadsheets, figures, and other documents as needed.
• Coordinate ADR calendar and meeting schedule.
• Provide meeting support and coordination for planning, agendas, background materials, minutes, and reports. Ensure technical needs, food, and other resources are properly authorized and coordinated. Manage and reconcile budgets allocated for meetings.
• Coordinate travel arrangements for the Associate Dean. Determine and prepare itineraries and support materials. Complete supporting documents for reimbursement.
• Liaise with Human Resources to advise ADR on personnel issues, with a high level of confidentiality, and attend to issues needing immediate attention.
• Facilitate annual and ongoing employee review process for all faculty and staff reporting to the Associate Dean for Research.
• Facilitate and manage internal reporting coordinated within the Office of the ADR.
• Lead and manage Research Services special projects as assigned and delegated by the Associate Dean for Research or the Dean.

Research Services Coordination:

Provide coordination and reporting support for Research Services activities and management of Research Services budgets, ensuring that activities are initiated and brought to completion in a timely manner, while adhering to iSchool, University, state, and federal guidelines.

• Manage the calendar for Research Services schedule of activities.
• Develop and manage SharePoint and other web-based administrative sites for Research Services. Organize and manage information resources developed for Information School researchers and internal resources for the Research Services team.
• Provide event coordination support for annual Research Fair, weekly Research Symposium, and ad-hoc research events.
• In review of grant and contract proposals, liaise with Research Services personnel to analyze and flag issues to bring to the attention of the Associate Dean for Research.
• Following full Research Services review and approval of grant and contract proposals, may approve grant submissions in electronic grant administration systems (SAGE) on behalf of the ADR.
• Create regular and ad-hoc reports of research activity and outcomes using information from a variety of administrative database sources.
• Manage and reconcile Research Services budgets, including the, Research Seed Fund, Strategic Research Fund, and events budgets, totaling over $80,000 annually.
• Coordinate activities of the iSchool Research Committee.
• Support policy and procedure development and manage implementation and reporting.
• Monitor Research Services web pages, contributing to content and keeping content up to date.

Other Duties:

• Attend All-School and staff meetings.
• Attend research administrative-related campus presentations, workshops, and trainings.
• Participate in iSchool events and activities as needed and appropriate.
• Perform other related duties as needed.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Communications, English, Business, Human Resources, Information Science or related field.
• Three years of increasingly responsible administrative experience, involving coordination of activities and events, communication and reporting, and project management. 
• Must show demonstrated ability to function independently while exercising skill and informed professional judgment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills: demonstrated experience in proof reading and editing; the ability to communicate and be comfortable with a variety of individuals ranging from undergraduate students to corporate-level executives.
• Must show demonstrated success in working with diverse populations.
• Proficiency in the use of MS Office Suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Adobe applications (Acrobat).
• Familiarity with online calendaring or scheduling system.
• Must be highly organized and show a high level of attention to detail.

Desired Qualifications

• Prior work experience at the University of Washington or another institute of higher education.
• Proficiency in the use of MS SharePoint
• Project management experience.
• Event planning and coordination experience.
• Knowledge of University of Washington policies and procedures, including those related to grants and contracts. Experience with UW Systems particularly SAGE and MyFD.
• Experience with federal grants and contracts policies and procedures.
• Understanding of the academic research process and funding environment.

What’s in it for you

• Full benefits, including medical and dental insurance and retirement plan.
• Paid vacation and sick leave, as well as 10 paid holidays a year and one personal day.
• Subsidized transit.
• Work for an exciting, cutting-edge center within the University of Washington.

Conditions of Employment

A satisfactory outcome of a reference check of previous employment.

The University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to build and maintain secure, high quality, innovative data infrastructure to support its research mission.

The UW Center for an Informed Public (CIP), launching Fall 2019, is a new collaborative, multidisciplinary effort that brings together faculty, staff, students and community partners in service of a core mission aiming to resist strategic misinformation, promote an informed society, and strengthen democratic discourse. A core objective of the Center for an Informed Public (CIP) is to provide computational and methodological support to diverse researchers working on these problems. The Senior Data Engineer will work in partnership with the Center’s Managing Director of Strategy and Operations (Center Director) and in close collaboration with CIP researchers to design, implement, and maintain infrastructure for the study of “big” social data. This infrastructure will include data architecture for collecting, storing, retrieving data; software tools for analyzing that data; and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for enabling access to that data. Data will encompass text, multimedia, and metadata from a variety of social media and other digital platforms. 

Our ideal candidate has extensive experience engineering complex data architecture for collection, storage, and retrieval of “big” data, strong communication skills, an appreciation for human-centered design, and a motivation to work with academic researchers to develop innovative methodological solutions and make societally important discoveries in this emerging field. 

This position is integral to the research mission of the Center but is not a direct research position. The primary responsibilities will be supporting others’ research. However, the senior engineer may have the opportunity to contribute to published research in ways that warrant authorship.

In the Information School (iSchool) there is an expectation that all faculty and staff will step up where they see an opportunity to apply their special expertise or talents, speak up when they identify opportunities or concerns, and lead by taking actions that exemplify the iSchool’s core values.  Leadership within the iSchool is expressed in diverse ways reflecting the variety of styles and cultures that are represented by our faculty and staff.

What you’ll be doing

Design, Build and Maintain Data and Research Infrastructure:

• Design, develop, implement, and administer data infrastructure to support research on social media and other online content.
• Build web applications and tools to support streaming, storing, curating, searching and analyzing diverse data sources (social media platforms, websites, etc).
• Maintain existing websites, tools, and system infrastructure.
• Work with faculty researchers to design the sociotechnical infrastructure (including systems, tools, methods, and processes) to support researchers with various levels of computational expertise.
• Design access points for facilitating access utilization into our data by internal and external researchers. 
• Design, implement, maintain, and administer databases and other tools to support research on social media and other online content.
• Ensure effective integration and security of applications, data, and components to deliver a high quality system capable of supporting real-time data production and complex, data-intensive scientific user analysis.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, information science or a related technical field.
• 3+ years of experience engineering and administering large-scale databases.
• Technical experience:
  • Significant experience with:
    • Python
    • SQL (MySQL and Postgres) experience including complex queries and optimization.
    • Designing data structures, algorithms and techniques to support large scale data analysis.
    • Using and developing APIs
    • Documenting solutions, use cases, and recommendations
  • Substantial experience:
    • Using and integrating security controls for web applications, mobile platforms, and backend systems.
    • Linux administration
    • Administering large-scale databases: MySQL, Postgres
    • Version control software (preferably git and familiarity with Github)
  • Some experience/knowledge in:
    • Full-stack web development (ideally Django and Angular)
    • Python and R data science libraries (pandas, numpy, tidyverse, etc.)
    • Data mining, machine learning, NLP techniques.
• Other required skills:
  • Demonstrated understanding of how to communicate complex technical concepts to researchers with a range of technical expertise.
  • Responsive, proactive style in supporting the needs of researchers.
  • Experience managing complex projects from start to finish.
  • Ability to work independently or as part of a team and interact well with faculty and research and users.
  • Experience documenting processes and procedures.
  • Demonstrated success in working with diverse populations.

Desired Qualifications

• Advanced degree encouraged. 
• Training in and appreciation of user- or human-centered design principled are highly recommended.

What’s in it for you

• Full benefits, including medical and dental insurance and retirement plan.
• Paid vacation and sick leave, as well as 10 paid holidays a year and one personal day.
• Subsidized transit.
• Work for an exciting, cutting-edge center within the University of Washington.

Conditions of Employment

• A satisfactory outcome of a reference check of previous employment.

The University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public seeks a Director of Strategy and Operations to join our team as a key leader to help steward this new multidisciplinary institute, housed in the Information School, through its launch and initial development of an organizational program. Working in close collaboration with the Center’s Executive Council, the Director of Strategy and Operations will have the overall responsibility of developing and overseeing organizational strategy, designing and implementing a diverse array of programs, and helping to ensure a sustainable trajectory of high quality work in service of the Center’s mission. 

The UW Center for an Informed Public (CIP), launching Fall 2019, is a new collaborative effort that brings together faculty, staff, students and community partners in service of a core mission aiming to resist strategic misinformation, promote an informed society, and strengthen democratic discourse. Located at the University of Washington, a world-class research university, embedded within the local community in the Pacific Northwest, this new Center will lead programs that span research, education, policy and outreach.

This is a rare and unusual opportunity to join a community of scholars and leaders ready to take on one of the most pressing issues of our time. Our ideal candidate is a passionate leader and communicator with a track record of successfully launching and growing an organization. Further, the candidate possesses demonstrated experience managing and leading people, including the ability to develop and empower top notch staff and promote a culture of high performance that values societal impact and social change. This is a new center, and the successful candidate is someone who excels at helping the faculty co-founders execute a vision and build a center culture and operations.

Reporting directly to the Faculty Director and working closely with the Executive Council and other senior staff, the Director of Strategy and Operations will support the CIP’s leadership team, serving as chief administrator for all the Center’s daily operations and programs. The Director of Strategy and Operations will supervise, support and work closely with several direct reports, including a Program Coordinator, Communications Manager, Data Engineer, and Community Labs Manager. The Director of Strategy and Operations will also be a resource for CIP’s diverse community of faculty affiliates, visiting professors, community fellows, and students. As a center with a strong public engagement mission, the Director of Strategy and Operations will also support the building and maintaining of relationships with strategic partners, public, private and civil society representatives, community leaders, and the general public. 

In the Information School (iSchool) there is an expectation that all faculty and staff will step up where they see an opportunity to apply their special expertise or talents, speak up when they identify opportunities or concerns, and lead by taking actions that exemplify the iSchool’s core values.  Leadership within the iSchool is expressed in diverse ways reflecting the variety of styles and cultures that are represented by our faculty and staff.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Strategy, Vision, and Leadership:

• With the Faculty Director and Executive Council, design and guide strategic planning and overall management of the organization.
• Work in partnership with the Faculty Director and Executive Council to recommend and implement new processes and operational approaches in alignment with strategic plans.
• Advise the Faculty Director and other key program staff on business and financial planning.
• Effectively communicate and present critical financial matters including the Center's annual budget to the Executive Council and the Committee of Associate Deans of Research.
• Maintain effective communication, keeping the Faculty Director informed of all critical issues.
• Advocate for the Center’s mission within the external community and the University of Washington.
• Support the Executive Council, Faculty Director and iSchool Advancement in fundraising efforts, including the preparation of tailored proposals and financial documents.
• Oversee the activities of the Center’s Community Fellows program—community and industry partners from across the region.
• Serve as a point of contact for the Center’s Faculty Affiliates, communicating affiliates needs with Center leadership.

Operations:

• Oversee all Center-wide project activities, responsibilities, and timelines to support effective Center management, task allocation, and efficiency gains.
• Has delegated decision making authority to allocate resources and establish policies, methods, procedures, and work rules for the Center.
• Ensure that the Center is adhering to the strategic plan and delivering status reports to the Executive Council, Committee of Associate Deans of Research, and Advisory Board.
• Lead all operational processes and systems at the Center—including operational management, information flow, and organizational planning—in support of CIP’s mission.
• Attend Executive Council meetings and other key meetings; maintain full operational view of center activities.
• Plan and lead internal meetings.
• Institute processes and infrastructure to support effective organizational functioning and communication.
• Lead and collaborate with Center staff to implement processes for all organizational needs in accordance with UW policies (i.e. hiring standards, on-boarding and HR processes, staff policies, database).
• Oversee financial management and budget planning. 
• Ensure that all Center financial activity, including grant, gift, revenue, and in-kind dollars, are fully tracked and integrated into Center's operating budget and that program staff receive reminders of needed progress/grant reports. In addition, work within UW system and with the Information School’s Research Services and Finance team to ensure all financial activities are in compliance with UW and departmental policies.

Team Development and Management:

• Recruit, hire and lead Center staff, including collaborating with them to create program goals and objectives, cultivate the values of the organization, and support efficiencies in program operations. 
• Manage the Center’s staff, whose dynamic activities span a range of initiatives including projects, events, community programs, digital media, communications, research infrastructure maintenance and office management.
• Oversee, foster and deepen staff relations, training and professional development.
• Ensure staff members receive timely and appropriate feedback, performance appraisals, training and development based on established metrics for staff performance.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree with a minimum of five years of administrative and strategic management experience, including financial and budgetary oversight and at least two years of direct professional staff supervision.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to communicate effectively with a wide variety of internal and external constituents. 
• Ability to build a successful organizational culture and develop comprehensive internal processes.  
• Strategically minded, analytical leader.
• Discreet facilitator and problem solver with a high tolerance for ambiguity.
• Autonomous self-starter with intellectual confidence and flexibility and ability to effectively manage multiple demands and priorities.
• Demonstrate a high degree of initiative-taking, problem solving capability, creativity, and capacity for innovative thinking. 
• Proficiency in developing budgets, fiscal monitoring and financial projections using multiple fund sources.
• Strong technology skills and inclination to adapt and learn new technologies.
• Demonstrated success in working with diverse populations.

Desired Qualifications

• Advanced degree preferred. 
• Experience in a large-scale, complex academic institution. 
• A passion for the Center’s mission: to resist strategic misinformation and strengthen democratic discourse.  (Domain expertise is not a requirement.)