Career Center

The University of Washington (UW) is proud to be one of the nation’s premier educational and research institutions. Our people are the most important asset in our pursuit of achieving excellence in education, research, and community service. Our staff not only enjoys outstanding benefits and professional growth opportunities, but also an environment noted for diversity, community involvement, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits, and natural beauty.

At the University of Washington, diversity is integral to excellence. We value and honor diverse experiences and perspectives, strive to create welcoming and respectful learning environments, and promote access, opportunity and justice for all.

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (PBSCI) within the UW School of Medicine is the third largest clinical department with 285 full-time faculty members, 280 clinical faculty members, and over 300 staff. Department faculty provide clinical services in 5 hospitals, 14 primary care locations, and several outpatient sites in addition to telepsychiatry consultations to more than 150 clinics in Washington and beyond. As the only academic psychiatry department serving the five state WWAMI region (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho), the Department’s highly competitive residency training program is largely responsible for developing the mental health workforce in the Pacific Northwest. The Department’s robust research portfolio totals $35 million in grants and contracts per year for projects ranging from clinical neurosciences to treatment development to health policy and population health. The Department is recognized as an international leader in developing, testing, and implementing Collaborative Care, an integrated care model increasingly seen as a solution for population-based mental health care. Other areas of excellence include Addictions, Autism, High Risk Youth, Neurosciences, and Trauma, and the Department is developing innovative new programs in Technology and Mental Health, Global Mental Health, Maternal and Child Mental Health, and Targeted Intervention Development.

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is recruiting for a Temporary Research Coordinator.

Position Purpose:
In support of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s ”Opioid Overdose Prevention in Tribes: Technical Assistance through Public Health Institutes,” the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) and the University of Washington are partnering to support tribal communities to increase the capacity of tribal health systems to prevent and respond to opioid overdose through improving data collection, epidemiologic surveillance capacity and increasing implementation of evidence-based prevention strategies grounded in respecting tribal sovereignty as well as cultural knowledge and traditions. In this project, NNPHI, UW, and CDC will collaborate to refine and enhance the technical assistance plan developed previously. The Research Coordinator (RC) works under the general direction of the Project Lead and will provide overall project management support to the team on (a) Adapted Evaluative Assessment and Indigenous Evaluation, (b) Data Academy, and (c) Dissemination, Outreach and Impact Measures project activities and deliverables.

The RC will work jointly with the team to develop an Indigenous Evaluation Framework, Indigenous Evaluation Toolkit and Indigenous Evaluation Technical Assistance Manual and Measures for tribal opioid overdose prevention programs. In addition, the RC will help develop a manual outlining a 2-day Data Academy. They will also support in developing, tracking and analyzing opioid project’s communication, dissemination, outreach and impact.

The RC will provide support in mixed methods information gathering, analysis, interpretation and dissemination efforts. The RC will recruit tribal recipients of CDC cooperative agreements to assess key elements necessary to support their ability to evaluate their projects through virtual site visits, interviews, online surveys and cognitive debriefing. They will also assist in developing reports, toolkits, frameworks, evaluation measures, technical assistance manuals, and other publications, communications and dissemination products, measures and reports etc. The RC tasks may also include organization of team materials and meetings, coordination of in-person and online forums and other meetings, support for communication efforts to technical assistance recipients, and other duties as assigned.

Position Complexities:
There are up to 25 CDC tribal grantees, representing a wide range of social and cultural environments (e.g., urban vs. rural, Northwest vs. Plains vs. Southwest) that require cultural humility, understanding, and flexibility. The frequent (in-person on hiatus due to COVID-19), telephone/video, and e-mail contacts with American Indian / Alaska Native communities require extraordinary tact and cultural sensitivity. This also applies to regular communication with CDC and NNPHI partners, as well as other tribal and institutional partners.

Position Dimensions and Impact to the University:
The position bridges the often wide gap—real and perceived—between tribal communities and academia / government agencies, especially with respect to health research. By building mutually trusting relationships between community and academia / agencies, both sides will be able to address health disparities to the mutual benefit of community well-being and researchers.

Responsibilities:
Project Management & Coordination (40%)
•Provide overall project management support including developing and managing timelines, leading project planning and implementation, and coordinating with 7D team members, Advisory group members (OTAG), consultants, tribal partners, and funding partners to achieve stated goals.
•Build and maintain effective working relationships with tribal partners and NNPHI.
•Provide logistical and organizational support for evaluation, research and data projects and data management.
•Provide support to developing toolkits, measures, approaches, technical assistance and Data Academy curriculum.
•Provide support to communication, publication and dissemination.
•Help facilitate project and partner meetings, site visits, as appropriate and perform other related duties.

Data Collection, Measures and Analysis (30%)
•Support quantitative primary and secondary data collection/management/analysis (e.g., developing survey instruments and tools; overseeing survey administration, participant recruitment and follow up; conducting statistical analysis, reporting results through data visualization and reports). During the current national pandemic situation the RC will pivot to virtual data collection, participant recruitment and data management strategies.
•Support qualitative data collection/management/analysis, including assisting with key informant and focus group and interview guides, helping facilitate logistics needed for interviews and focus group discussions with a range of partners. During the current national pandemic situation, the RC will pivot to virtual qualitative data collection, participant recruitment and data management strategies.
•Manage organization of collected evaluation and impact measures (indicators), and identify or develop new measures.
•Conduct other evaluation and research related activities, as needed, such as IRB application and modification, literature reviews and environmental scans, including searching academic databases, reading and synthesizing published studies.

Communication, Translation and Dissemination (30%)
•Assist in developing evaluative assessment and Indigenous evaluation toolkits, reports, abstracts, presentations and other deliverables through innovative design thinking planning, collaborative writing and editing.
•Assist in developing a 2-day tribal opioid Data Academy planning manual and other deliverables through innovative design thinking planning, interviews, literature review, environmental scan, and collaborative writing and editing.
•Support in developing project deliverable dissemination, outreach and impact measures.
•Facilitate logistics needed for designing and dissemination plan and products for presentation of project findings to community and stakeholder audiences at various forums including Seven Directions website, Opioid Community of Practice/Gathering Grounds, Tribal Epi Centers meetings, NNPHI/CDC partner meetings, and local, regional and national conferences.

Lead Responsibilities:
•Plan and manage research and evaluation project activities
•Coordinate and arrange virtual interviews and other meetings with tribal partners and other stakeholders
•Literature review, data collection, management, and analysis
•Develop project deliverables such as interview scripts, reports, measures, manual for a conference, trainings, technical assistance manuals, models, communication materials etc.      

Supervisory Responsibilities:
Supervise student assistants, who will be conducting data entry, making phone calls, conducting literature searches, and assisting with meeting preparations

Minimum Qualifications:
•Master’s Degree in Public Health, Psychology, Social Work, Sociology, Public Affairs, or related field.
•One year work related experience
•Experience with employing a variety of evaluation methods
•Experience with community-based participatory research (CBPR) or community-engaged approaches
•Familiarity with or working in tribal or under-represented minority populations
•Familiarity with Indigenous evaluation approaches
•Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment; experience in virtual team environments is a plus.
•Ability to facilitate focus groups
•Ability to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data
•Knowledge and prior experience with human subjects institutional review process
•Experience working with statistical or analytic software packages, e.g., SAS or Stata
•Training and/or knowledge in ethical conduct of research with human subjects
•Strong writing skills and a demonstrated ability to write manuals or training guides
•Background and experience conducting substance abuse research
•Ability to work as a collaborative, cooperative, and congenial member of a close knit scholarly and administrative team, as well as work independently.

Desired Qualifications:
•Familiarity with project management tools and/or software packages, e.g., MS Project, Smartsheet, etc.
•Knowledge or prior experience with the federal, state, local or foundation grant processes
•Knowledge or prior experience with digital story-telling
•Knowledge or prior experience with design-thinking perspective.

Application Process:
The application process for UW positions may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process.  These assessments may include Work Authorization, Cover Letter, and/or others.  Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment you will be prompted to do so the next time you access your “My Jobs” page. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed.