Director, Research Management

University of Chicago•Chicago, IL

1d•Onsite

About The Position

The UL Inclusive Economy Lab partners with policymakers, community-based organizations, and others to identify their most urgent challenges, co-generate evidence about what works, and translate findings into policy changes that end intergenerational poverty. By identifying barriers to social mobility and racial equity and highlighting programs and policies with the most positive impact, the lab aims to create greater economic opportunity. The lab specializes in evaluating programs with the potential to improve lives in four main areas.

Requirements

College or university degree in a related field.
7+ years of work experience in a related job discipline.
Resume (required)
Cover Letter (required)

Nice To Haves

Managing complex projects, with numerous stakeholders.
Building trusting relationships with leaders across multiple levels of an organization.
Ability to engage thoughtfully with issues related to race, identity, and equity and work across differences.
Demonstrated experience working with communities that have experienced segregation and disinvestment.
Interest in finding and testing innovative policy solutions.
Content expertise in workforce development, quality jobs and inclusive hiring.
Knowledge of research design and social policy evaluation.

Responsibilities

Oversee research initiatives from scoping and design through implementation, analysis, and dissemination.
Partner with senior leadership to prioritize and sequence projects based on strategic importance and capacity.
Ensure project plans, milestones, and deliverables are clearly defined, tracked, and regularly updated.
Manage and develop a team of 5–7 research management staff.
Assign staff to projects and activities based on skill sets, professional goals, and competencies.
Ensure consistent project onboarding, training, coaching, and accountability systems for research management staff.
Design and lead twice-monthly research management team days focused on skill building, alignment, and continuous improvement.
Foster a high-performance, equity-centered culture grounded in collaboration, ownership, and learning.
Lead implementation and ongoing optimization of Bridge.
Sustain and strengthen practices aligned with the standards of the Project Management Institute (PMI), ensuring disciplined and scalable project management systems.
Lead project management trainings for research staff to ensure shared language, tools, and expectations.
Establish and enforce consistent project documentation and reporting practices.
Oversee IEL’s project risk management framework, including regular risk surveys and structured debriefs.
Ensure all projects adopt consistent risk identification, mitigation planning, and post-project learning processes.
Continuously improve workflows, templates, and processes to increase efficiency and reduce conflict.
Provides expertise to researchers on compliance of research activities with institutional, state, and federal regulatory policies, procedures, directives and mandates.
Provides expertise to researchers and research support staff.
Oversees activities related to data collection and analysis.
Performs other related work as needed.