Data Governance Program Manager

Universities of Wisconsin•Madison, WI

1d•Remote

About The Position

We are seeking an experienced Data Governance Program Manager to support investigators by advancing the discoverability, accessibility, integration, stewardship, and responsible sharing of biomedical research data across the School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH). As a member of the Office of Informatics, the successful candidate will lead institutional efforts to establish and operationalize data governance strategies that enhance the value, quality, interoperability, and reuse of research data assets spanning clinical, translational, population health, genomic, imaging, and other biomedical domains. The ideal candidate will work closely with investigators, data custodians, informatics teams, and other institutional partners to develop scalable approaches for research governance including data linkage, metadata management, data quality assessment, and data sharing. This role will be instrumental in building a sustainable data ecosystem that supports high-quality biomedical research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and data-driven discovery.

Requirements

Demonstrable experience with at least three of the following competencies: Research data governance and stewardship frameworks, FAIR data principles and metadata standards, Data integration and entity resolution/data linkage, Research data repositories and data sharing infrastructures, Synthetic data generation and research-ready data products, Data quality assessment and data curation
Proven experience working on a large, grant-funded project that involves data exchange and sharing.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with programming languages such as Python or R, or similar.
Familiarity with: Biomedical and clinical research data management, Multimodal data environments including clinical, genomic, imaging, and unstructured data, and Research informatics and translational science ecosystems
Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
Strong communication and collaboration skills.
Experience carrying out research using clinical science or data science with electronic health records

Responsibilities

Lead the development and implementation of a comprehensive biomedical research data governance program across SMPH, including best practices for research data stewardship and lifecycle management.
Partner with investigators to develop and implement data management and sharing plans for grant applications, ensuring alignment with funding agency requirements and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles.
Facilitate the discoverability, documentation, and dissemination of research datasets, including support for assigning persistent identifiers (e.g., DOIs), developing metadata standards, and depositing datasets into institutional and national repositories.
Establish and oversee data quality, data curation, and data stewardship frameworks that promote the accuracy, consistency, completeness, and usability of research data assets.
Lead the design and implementation of data integration, linkage and secure release methodologies spanning structured, semi-structured, textual, imaging, and other heterogeneous biomedical data sources.
Develop processes, standards, and tools that improve interoperability and enable the secure integration of research, clinical, public health, and other data domains to support advanced research initiatives while protecting privacy of patients and participants in research studies.
Guide the development and use of de-identified, limited, and synthetic datasets that support research access while maintaining appropriate safeguards for PHI and compliance with institutional policies.
Develop and implement methodologies for creating research-ready data products that enable reproducible, secure, scalable, and efficient research workflows.
Conduct and oversee data quality assessments, validation activities, and data fitness-for-use evaluations to ensure that research datasets meet established governance and scientific standards.
Serve as a subject matter expert in biomedical data governance, advising investigators, departmental leaders, and research teams on data stewardship, data sharing, metadata standards, and responsible data use.
Develop and deliver training, educational resources, and consultation services that promote best practices in research data management and governance across SMPH.
Monitor emerging trends, technologies, and policies related to biomedical data governance, FAIR data practices, research data ecosystems, interoperability standards, and advanced data management methodologies.
Directly and indirectly supervise staff supporting research data operations, data stewardship programs, data curation activities, and institutional data governance initiatives across SMPH.
Organizes and automates project steps for data preparation and analysis
Documents approaches to address research questions and contributes to the establishment of reproducible research methodologies and analysis workflows
Prepares data sets for analysis including cleaning/quality assurance, transformations, restructuring, and integration of multiple data sources
Serves as an institutional subject matter expert and liaison to key internal and external stakeholders regarding data science best practices and methodologies and represents the interests of data science
Identifies and implements or guides others in implementing appropriate data science techniques to find data patterns and answer research questions chosen by the lead researcher including data visualization, statistical analysis, machine learning, and data mining
May supervise the data-to-day activities of staff and resolves routine personnel issues
Contributes to education and training initiatives
Composes and assembles reproducible workflows and reports to clearly articulate patterns to researchers and/or administrators