TERA Assistant Director
About The Position
The Division of Research and Innovation at Oregon State University is seeking a TERA Assistant Director. This is a full-time (1.00 FTE), 12-month professional faculty position. The Assistant Director works closely with the TERA Director to cultivate strategic relationships with colleges and research teams across Oregon State University and beyond, and provides consistent operational leadership for the TERA Launch program within the TERA Solutions Hub. The TERA Hub (Transdisciplinary, Translational, and Engaged Research Advancement) serves faculty, students, industry, government, and community members who work together on co-developed team research addressing Oregon’s pressing problems. It supports teams in moving ideas toward application through leadership training, space for transdisciplinary collaboration, and project-management training and tools. The position designs, implements, and continually improves a university-wide project launch service for newly funded, large, complex, and multi-institutional research awards. It supervises Launch Managers and supports a limited portfolio of high-priority projects, including serving as lead launch administrator for selected complex awards. The role typically requires in-person presence, although a hybrid or remote work agreement with occasional travel may be considered. A flexible schedule may be arranged with the employee and supervisor. The portfolio involves multiple simultaneous projects and changing needs and timelines. Occasional evening or weekend work and limited in-state or out-of-state travel may be required.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of two years of progressively responsible professional experience in operational leadership, research administration, innovation centers, industry partnerships, complex program management, higher education operations, or a related environment.
- Five years of experience managing complex programs, projects, research initiatives, or organizational operations.
- Demonstrated experience supervising staff or leading teams.
- Experience developing operational systems, workflows, or programs.
- Strong relationship-building, facilitation, and communication skills.
- Experience coordinating activities involving multiple stakeholders and organizational units.
- Ability to work effectively with internal and external partners from varied backgrounds, and a demonstrable commitment to promoting and enhancing equitable engagement in teams.
- Must successfully complete a criminal history check and be determined position qualified; incumbents must self-report convictions. Additional criminal history checks every 24 months may apply to those in youth programs.
Nice To Haves
- Master’s degree or PhD.
- Experience supporting sponsored research, research administration, or research development activities.
- Experience cultivating partnerships among academic, industry, government, nonprofit, and community partners.
- Experience leading interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, or community-engaged initiatives.
- Problem-solving ability, adaptability, and flexibility.
- Knowledge of federal research funding agencies and sponsored project requirements.
- Experience with organizational change management, program assessment, or service design.
Responsibilities
- Oversee day-to-day TERA Solutions Hub operations, including programs, services, systems, communications, data management, operational processes, and service delivery.
- Provide operational leadership for TERA Launch and develop and refine service models, intake and project-selection processes, launch methodologies, assessment frameworks, cost-recovery approaches, templates, and operating procedures.
- Establish and maintain systems for project assignment, resource allocation, reporting, evaluation, and quality assurance; monitor performance and use results to guide improvements, planning, resource decisions, and program scaling.
- Supervise Launch Managers, including hiring, onboarding, training, workload distribution, mentoring, professional development, quality assurance, and performance management; foster a community of practice and provide peer support to campus project managers.
- Work with TERA leadership to develop and strengthen partnerships with colleges, centers and institutes, industry, government agencies, nonprofits, and community organizations; represent TERA Launch in university planning and broader TERA initiatives.
- Lead the launch administration of selected high-priority, large, complex, and multi-institutional research awards, directly managing launches or coordinating Launch Managers.
- Develop startup and implementation plans, governance structures, timelines, communication plans, milestone systems, and transition strategies for selected research awards.
- Coordinate administrative and operational requirements, including hiring, procurement, contracting, compliance, reporting, infrastructure access, and project documentation.
- Facilitate collaboration among principal investigators, research teams, university units, sponsors, institutions, and external partners to remove barriers and support effective team performance.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
