Sr. Research Specialist

University of Chicago • Chicago, IL

9h • Onsite

About The Position

The Sr. Research Specialist serves as the department's lead for project coordination and operational planning, overseeing the organization, prioritization, and execution of initiatives across multiple teams. This role provides leadership in establishing project management standards, coordinating timelines, monitoring progress, and ensuring organizational priorities remain on track. Acting as a central resource for cross-functional collaboration, the Research Specialist promotes consistency, accountability, and effective communication across projects while supporting strategic departmental goals. As the project management function expands, this role is expected to provide guidance and direction to Project Managers and help shape the department's project management infrastructure.

Requirements

• College or university degree in related field.
• Knowledge and skills developed through 7+ years of work experience in a related job discipline.
• Knowledge of research regulatory policies and procedures.
• Experience with Microsoft Office 365 and project management tools (e.g., Planner, Asana, Trello).
• Strong project management and organizational skills.
• Excellent communication and coaching abilities.
• Strategic thinker who can balance innovation with consistency.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office 365.
• Prior leadership experience.
• Organizational skills.
• Verbal and written communication skills.
• Work independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team.

Nice To Haves

• Experience coordinating programs, trainings, or projects strongly preferred.
• Knowledge in computational methods and statistical tools for the analysis of large-scale neural data.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the departmental lead for coordinating complex projects and strategic initiatives across multiple teams, ensuring alignment with organizational priorities and timelines.
• Develop, implement, and maintain standardized project management processes, tools, templates, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to promote consistency and operational excellence.
• Provide functional leadership, guidance, and project management support to team members, fostering collaboration, accountability, and adoption of best practices.
• Coordinate cross-functional efforts among operational, research, education, and technology teams to ensure effective communication, resource alignment, and successful project execution.
• Develop and maintain comprehensive project plans, timelines, milestones, and tracking mechanisms, proactively identifying risks and implementing solutions to keep initiatives on schedule.
• Monitor project performance, prepare reports and dashboards, and provide leadership with regular updates, recommendations, and analysis to support strategic decision-making.
• Facilitate project meetings, document action items, and ensure timely completion of follow-up activities.
• Lead the development, review, and continuous improvement of departmental workflows, methodologies, and operational procedures, adapting existing processes to meet evolving organizational needs.
• Independently analyze and resolve complex operational and project-related challenges by recommending and implementing process improvements and innovative solutions.
• Apply subject matter expertise and industry best practices to support the design, implementation, and evaluation of departmental initiatives and research-related activities.
• Serve as a central resource for project coordination, promoting collaboration across teams and ensuring initiatives are executed efficiently and consistently.
• Support organizational initiatives beyond core responsibilities, including operational planning, event coordination, communications, and other strategic projects as assigned.
• 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.
• Leads the establishment of new laboratories and provides assistance with purchasing new laboratory equipment; ensuring efficient operation of laboratory, including overseeing maintenance and repair of laboratory equipment.
• Improves financial, personnel, planning, compliance and other administrative aspects of research project.
• Collaborates with other researchers on long-range plans for research projects.
• Leads, investigates, modifies and applies new procedures, techniques or applications of technology.
• Establishes goals and operating procedures, practices, and guidelines.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Benefits

• health insurance
• retirement
• paid time off

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior