Senior Evaluation Manager for Sponsored Research

YOUTH VILLAGES, INC.

1d•Remote

About The Position

Youth Villages is seeking a strategic, highly organized Senior Evaluation Manager for Sponsored Research to lead complex evaluation initiatives that support program improvement, service expansion, and child welfare system change. Reporting to the Director of Research, this person will provide scientific and project leadership for evaluations conducted with external researchers, ensuring studies address meaningful organizational questions, use rigorous and appropriate methods, and produce findings that inform implementation, scaling, practice, and policy. The role serves as Youth Villages’ primary liaison with external evaluation partners on one or more externally funded projects and integrates evidence from evaluations, administrative data analyses, implementation findings, and other sources. The Senior Evaluation Manager synthesizes this evidence into products explaining what is changing, how strategies are being implemented, whether expected results are occurring, and what can be learned to strengthen future efforts. This is a remote position with occasional travel for meetings, presentations, conferences, and other dissemination activities.

Requirements

Doctorate in psychology, public policy, public administration, social work, epidemiology, or a related social or behavioral science field.
At least 5 years of relevant experience.
Strong knowledge of research design, quantitative methods, program evaluation, and qualitative or mixed-methods research.
Ability to critically evaluate research methods, measurement strategies, analytic approaches, and the strength and limitations of evidence.
Strong project management and organizational skills, including the ability to coordinate multiple research workstreams, partners, timelines, and priorities.
Ability to collaborate effectively with researchers, organizational leaders, practitioners, and other stakeholders.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate technical information for non-technical audiences.
Ability to work from a secure, private home office with reliable high-speed internet.

Nice To Haves

Knowledge of implementation science and/or applied research methods.
Experience evaluating complex interventions, implementation efforts, or systems-change initiatives.
Experience working with child welfare systems or other public human-services systems.

Responsibilities

Develop and manage evaluation learning agendas identifying priority questions, evidence needs, measurement strategies, and milestones.
Ensure evaluations address strategic, programmatic, implementation, practice, or policy questions.
Provide scientific guidance on evaluation design, measurement, quantitative and qualitative methods, analytic approaches, and interpretation.
Critically assess methodological approaches, assumptions, findings, and limitations, and resolve methodological questions with research partners.
Provide evaluation partners with relevant programmatic, operational, organizational, and system context.
Identify emerging evaluation needs and work with partners to refine research questions, measures, and analytic approaches as findings and priorities evolve.
Serve as Youth Villages’ primary liaison with the external evaluator for the Intercept Scaling and Practice/Policy Change investment.
Coordinate evaluation activities across Youth Villages teams, external evaluators, research partners, and other collaborators.
Manage project plans, timelines, deliverables, dependencies, responsibilities, decisions, and communications across multiple evaluation workstreams.
Ensure partners receive timely feedback, decisions, contextual information, data coordination, and access to appropriate staff and stakeholders.
Maintain documentation of research questions, methodological decisions, findings, open questions, and next steps.
Identify competing priorities, barriers, and delays, and assess their implications for commitments, staffing, budgets, and timelines.
Lead regular partnership check-ins and contribute to assessing partnership effectiveness and progress toward shared goals.
Integrate findings from evaluation studies, administrative data analyses, implementation measures, qualitative research, and other evidence sources.
Coordinate with colleagues leading related research and evidence-building initiatives to align questions, measures, timelines, and interpretation where work intersects.
Examine evidence across implementation, program outcomes, organizational and system change, and broader child welfare outcomes.
Help determine whether unexpected findings may reflect the strategy, implementation, underlying assumptions, measurement, or contextual factors.
Identify convergence, inconsistency, and uncertainty across evidence sources and work with research partners to determine appropriate next questions.
Lead development of integrated evaluation products synthesizing findings across research partners and data sources.
Help teams use findings to assess whether strategies should be continued, strengthened, adapted, or reconsidered.
Translate findings into implications for implementation, scaling, program improvement, practice, policy, and future research.
Develop presentations, executive summaries, reports, and other evidence products for leadership, practitioners, funders, public-system partners, and non-technical audiences.
Coordinate interpretation and dissemination of findings across research partners and Youth Villages teams, working with Communications and other teams as appropriate.
Identify opportunities to synthesize lessons across projects and contribute to organizational learning about effective implementation and scaling.

Benefits

Medical, dental, prescription drug, and vision coverage
401(k)
Two weeks of paid vacation for full-time employees; one week for part-time employees
12 paid sick days per year
11 paid holidays
Paid parental leave
Mileage and cell phone reimbursement when applicable
Tuition reimbursement and licensure supervision
Continuous training and growth and development opportunities
Clinical and administrative advancement opportunities