Program Manager- Research - McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics

UTHealth Houston•Houston, TX

37d•Onsite

About The Position

McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics is shaping the future of patient care, disease prevention, and biomedical discovery by transforming data into innovative solutions powered by artificial intelligence, data science, and informatics. We are the only biomedical informatics program with advanced doctoral degrees in Texas and the largest and only free-standing informatics school in the nation. The Program Manager provides project management and grant administration support for BIG-ARC, a service center and research group within the McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics that conducts primary and collaborative research and provides biomedical informatics services to the UT Health Houston clinical research community. This role is primarily administrative, ensuring that Principal Investigators (PIs), project teams, and service requests stay on schedule, on budget, and in compliance with sponsor and institutional requirements.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Science or a health administration related field required
5 years of applicable experience required
May substitute required experience with equivalent years of education beyond the minimum education requirement.
Depending on research may require advanced level grant writing skills.
Registered Nurse (RN) State Licensure or Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC) by Texas Board of Nursing (BON) may be required
Certified Clinical Research Coordinator (CCRC) by Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) may be required
Certifications specific to the program required

Nice To Haves

Employees must permanently reside and work in the State of Texas.

Responsibilities

Coordination of day-to-day project management for BIG-ARC research grants, service engagements, and internal initiatives, including tracking milestones, deliverable due dates, progress reports, and close-out activities across multiple concurrent projects.
Support grant administration throughout the lifecycle: assists PIs and co-investigators with proposal preparation, budget development and submission, just-in-time requests, progress reports, no-cost extensions, and renewals in coordination with the school's grants office and sponsors (NIH, foundations, internal funding).
Monitor PI and project team activity against sponsor and internal timelines; proactively ensures that PIs, faculty collaborators, and staff complete assigned tasks, reports, and deliverables on time, and escalates issues to the BIG-ARC leadership as needed.
Maintain project documentation and tracking systems, including project plans, deliverable calendars, effort allocations, subcontract milestones, IRB and data use agreement statuses, and service center workload (e.g., iLab requests, Clinical Data Warehouse projects).
Coordinate budget activities in partnership with department administrators: helps draft budgets and justifications, tracks expenditures against awards, reviews monthly financial reports, flags variances, and supports effort reporting and personnel actions related to grant-funded staff.
Serve as the primary administrative point of contact for BIG-ARC project stakeholders, including investigators, service requestors, collaborators, sponsors, and internal UTHealth offices (grants, contracts, compliance, IRB, finance).
Prepare meeting agendas, materials, and minutes for project, leadership, and sponsor meetings; tracks action items to completion and maintains follow-through across the team.
Assist with preparation of progress reports, abstracts, presentations, and other deliverables required by sponsors and/or institutional leadership; helps maintain BIG-ARC web pages, service descriptions, and outreach materials so investigators can readily access services.
Stay current on relevant sponsor requirements and university policies (NIH, CTSA, UTHealth, HIPAA, and data governance) and ensures projects, budgets, and reporting comply with all applicable federal, state, and institutional rules.
Manages the research agenda for the area.
Sets deadlines, assigns responsibilities, monitors the progress of projects, and provides supervision and guidance to the research personnel, research nurses and administrative staff.
Facilitates collaboration between clinicians and research scientist, internal and external to the University.
Assists with the annual budget, negotiates service contracts, reports on progress and authorizes expenditures.
Informs upper management of key activities.
Assists in grant proposals to both private foundations and governmental agencies.
May work closely with the Office of Sponsored Projects on the submission of grants.
May conduct or supervise training related to research for internal, hospital, and community groups.
Manages on-going strategic plans for the area.
Communicates with community and professionals to share objectives and outcomes.
Prepares/makes oral presentations at professional meetings.
May also participate in committees as deemed appropriate for the department.
Stays abreast of new and updated protocols for the department.
Manages Human Resources activities of department in regards to: recruiting and selection, hiring and termination, training, professional development, mentoring, counseling, performance evaluations, and salary planning.
Performs other duties as assigned.

Benefits

100% paid medical premiums for our full-time employees
Generous time off (holidays, preventative leave day, both vacation and sick time – all of which equates to around 37-38 days per year)
The longer you stay, the more vacation you’ll accrue!
Longevity Pay (Monthly payments after two years of service)
Awesome retirement/pension plan
Free financial and legal counseling
Free mental health counseling services
Gym membership discounts and access to wellness programs
Other employee discounts including entertainment, car rentals, cell phones, etc.
Resources for child and elder care