Senior Research Associate for Faculty Analysis

UNC-Chapel Hill • Chapel Hill, NC

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Research Associate for Faculty Analysis is a key member of the Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment (IRPA), a team of data analysis and evaluation professionals within the UNC-Chapel Hill Provost’s organization. The position also maintains a secondary reporting relationship with the Office of Faculty Affairs (OFA), bringing together OFA’s faculty expertise and IRPA’s research and analysis capabilities to support a coordinated, data-informed understanding of the University’s faculty.

The role conducts data analysis, reporting, and evaluation related to the status and experiences of more than 4,000 UNC-Chapel Hill faculty members. It synthesizes complex data from multiple institutional sources to address strategic and operational questions concerning recruitment, retention, promotion, compensation, professional development, productivity, faculty satisfaction with institutional support, work-life balance, and other topics.

The Senior Research Associate supports evaluation needs across the Provost’s Office, Faculty Affairs, the Center for Faculty Excellence, accreditation bodies, external ranking agencies, UNC System Office requests, Board of Trustees requests, and campus leadership. The work provides actionable insights for policy development, strategic planning, and decision-making. Responsibilities include gathering and analyzing data and developing reports, presentations, and responses to ad hoc questions that communicate findings through clear narratives and visualizations. The position also contributes to institutional reporting, benchmarking initiatives, and special studies aligned with university priorities, and collaborates with IRPA, OFA, academic units, Human Resources, and other central offices to enhance faculty data quality, access, and appropriate use.

The position may be eligible for a hybrid work arrangement that includes a partially remote work location, consistent with System Office policy. UNC-Chapel Hill employees are generally required to live within a reasonable commuting distance of their assigned duty station.

Requirements

• Exceptional oral and written communication skills.
• Professional work experience in higher education.
• Experience developing questionnaires and analyzing data from logic models, surveys, and focus groups.
• Experience applying project management best practices to track assignments, timelines, and the sequence of activities leading to deliverables.

Nice To Haves

• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively and productively with professionals at all levels of the University and across units.
• Demonstrated ability to apply advanced knowledge of social science research and evaluation designs and methodology, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods.
• Experience conducting advanced statistical analyses using R, SAS, SPSS, Stata, or comparable analytical software, including applying appropriate statistical methods and clearly interpreting results.
• Experience extracting data from data warehouses, data marts, and other institutional data sources.
• Proficiency in writing queries and code (e.g., SQL, R, Python, or similar) to retrieve, prepare, and analyze data.
• Experience designing and populating dashboards using PowerBI or Tableau and providing data literacy tools to enhance user experience.

Responsibilities

• Conduct data analysis, reporting, and evaluation related to the status and experiences of UNC-Chapel Hill faculty.
• Synthesize complex data from multiple institutional sources to answer strategic and operational questions about faculty.
• Gather and analyze data, and develop reports, presentations, narratives, visualizations, and responses to ad hoc questions.
• Support evaluation needs of the Provost’s Office, Faculty Affairs, the Center for Faculty Excellence, accreditation bodies, external ranking agencies, UNC System Office requests, Board of Trustees requests, and campus leadership.
• Contribute to institutional reporting requirements, benchmarking initiatives, and special studies aligned with university priorities.
• Collaborate with IRPA, OFA, academic units, Human Resources, and other central offices on initiatives to enhance faculty data quality, access, and appropriate use.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed