Project Officer, Resource Tracking

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent research center at the University of Washington. Its mission is to deliver to the world timely, relevant, and scientifically valid evidence to improve health policy and practice. IHME carries out its mission through a range of projects within different research areas including the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors; Future Health Scenarios; Costs and Cost Effectiveness; Resource Tracking; and Impact Evaluations. Our vision is to provide policymakers, donors, and researchers with the highest-quality quantitative evidence base so all people live long lives in full health.

IHME is committed to providing the evidence base necessary to help solve the world’s most important health problems. This requires creativity and innovation, which are cultivated by an inclusive, diverse, and equitable environment that respects and appreciates differences, embraces collaboration, and invites the voices of all IHME team members.

IHME has an exciting opportunity to join the team as a Project Officer on the Resource Tracking team. IHME’s Resource Tracking portfolio generates annual estimates of global health financing; assesses macro unit costs; tracks resources provided for different diseases and risk factors; and widely measures expenditures that flow through the various functions of health systems in different countries. This work relies upon the collation of all available quantitative data from a variety of sources, including budgets, financial reports, tax filings, hospital records, healthy facility surveys, and claims data, among others. Through these efforts, major peer-reviewed publications, an annual policy report, and novel interactive tools are produced to help scientific and non-scientific audiences digest our results. The primary purpose of the position is to facilitate the implementation of multidisciplinary research tracking and assessing US health care spending, with analyses focused on small area estimation and variation across US counties and measuring and assessing disparities in spending and utilization across key race and ethnicity categories. This work requires timely coordination, management, and communication among different internal and external audiences, within and across research teams.

The Project Officer will manage enterprise workflow, from data, to analytic processes, to results critique, to improvement. To create the needed indicators, the position manages collation of all available relevant quantitative data, from both external sources and other teams within IHME. The Project Officer will help facilitate the modeling of estimates and help to manage various analytic processes that are used to apply innovative analytic methods. Finally, they will ensure the results are vetted and eventually disseminated appropriately through a variety of mechanisms such as web presence, interactive tools and data visualizations, conference presentations, scientific publications, and materials for non-scientific audiences.

To succeed, the Project Officer must develop a sufficient understanding of the Resource Tracking team’s intellectual and analytic approach, as well as the inner workings, timelines, and goals. They must also become conversant in the quantitative methods and modeling approaches used by the research team. In addition to becoming articulate about methods and results, the Project Officer must be adept at facilitating communication among technical and project staff with varying degrees of experience and from a variety of cultural settings and disciplines. Finally, the Project Officer must fully understand the project goals and be able to translate those goals into action by managing resources (including people) to achieve important deadlines for the delivery of complex products and tasks. Overall, the Project Officer will be a critical member of an agile, dynamic team. This position is contingent on project funding availability.

Responsibilities:

Research command

• Develop a command of the intellectual material, and the relevant results, as they act as inputs to the research area and the projects the individual must facilitate. The individual is expected to develop an astute understanding of the material presented in journal articles, policy reports, and presentations that result from the projects on which they work.
• Become thoroughly familiar with the details of complex interdisciplinary projects included in Resource Tracking’s portfolio, including their goals, objectives, and activities. As a knowledgeable resource on a project’s intellectual substance, be integrally involved with all processes and key activities during the lifecycle of the project and be able to summarize the project’s progress to internal and external audiences.
• Develop a command of the computational, diagnostic, and visualization needs of the portfolio and the associated competencies, skills, and resources required to achieve the research goals.

Project management

• Facilitate complex projects involving cutting-edge quantitative data collation, analyses, and tools for dissemination.
• Monitor and assess adherence to data and code quality protocols among researchers, data professionals, and other staff; track progress against deadlines; and help resolve roadblocks.
• Expertly carry out communications, relationship building, and project management with faculty and senior leaders from governmental, non-profit, research, academic, and donor organizations to attain project goals and facilitate productive collaboration.
• Liaise with project managers and faculty across many teams in order to leverage the wealth of data generated by IHME.
• Drive research forward by managing dynamic teams of researchers and professional staff. Turn intellectual agendas set by researchers into action plans that can be implemented effectively across multiple project participants to achieve demanding and time-sensitive project milestones. Confidently and effectively participate in project assignments with a solid grounding in project specifics and current status. Track progress and manage coordination and communication across the team.
• Manage high-quality data collation, cleaning, and integration into the analytic process.
• Develop study protocols, process descriptions, and training materials to ensure efficient operations across the team.
• Coordinate needs and actions across multiple teams internally to ensure data access, analyses, and diagnostics are appropriately connected and undertaken efficiently to produce results in a timely manner.
• Facilitate routine analytic processes and modeling efforts to derive key indicators and estimates based upon set protocols and parameters.
• Monitor, report, and forecast workflow and deadlines through effective portfolio management.
• Coordinate implementation of research code and documentation versioning, improvements to code, and documentation of out-of-code processes.
• Facilitate creation of estimates documentation for the purpose of institutional knowledge sharing.

Supervisory/management

• Supervise Data Analysts, Data Specialists, and hourly employees (e.g., student assistants, temporary staff), to include providing timely feedback and priority-setting guidance to them, hiring, training, completing performance evaluations, and making recommendations for disciplinary action as needed.
• Mentor researchers and data professionals by providing guidance in the development of professional skills (e.g., time management, work organization, communication skills).
• Manage overall workflow of team in close collaboration with Principal Investigator and senior staff on projects. Develop overall work-plan timeline and task assignments.
• Facilitate the development of new research proposals, including creating budgets to match proposed scopes of work, developing project management plans, and editing scientific narratives.
• Interpret financial reports and participate in the budgeting process.
• Manage events and meetings, including logistical support and materials creation. Participate in internal or external trainings, as needed.
• Formulate effective strategies for motivating research teams and helping to ensure high achievement among all individuals on them.
• Perform additional duties as assigned that fall within the reasonable scope of this position as a member of the Resource Tracking team and of IHME overall.

As a UW employee, you will enjoy generous benefits and work/life programs. For a complete description of our benefits for this position, please visit our website, click here.

REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor’s degree in social sciences, sciences, or related field plus three years’ related experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Additional Requirements:

• Must exhibit strong desire and ability to learn new intellectual content across different disciplines in a timely fashion.
• Previous experience supervising employees.
• Incumbent must be able to work independently, be flexible, and juggle competing priorities.
• Strong oral and written communication skills and relationship management skills are critical.
• Strong project management skills, including demonstrated ability to take multiple priorities and translate them into project completion through expert planning.
• Experience using MS Office suite required.
• Excellent interpersonal skills; a cooperative team player, energetic, and able to develop productive relationships with colleagues and external collaborators.
• Interest in global health research.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• A commitment to working to alongside others at IHME to illuminate the health impacts of systemic racism and to work within IHME to make our organization more diverse and inclusive. See IHME’s DEI statement here: http://www.healthdata.org/get-involved/careers/dei.

Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration.

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

• Evening and weekend work may be required.
• Office is located in Seattle, Washington. This position is eligible to work fully remote; work schedule required to overlap 50% of IHME office hours between 8am and 6pm Pacific Time.
• This position is open to anyone authorized to work in the U.S. The UW is not able to sponsor visas for staff positions.
• The University of Washington requires students and personnel to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment. To learn more about the requirements, please review the following: https://www.ehs.washington.edu/covid-19-prevention-and-response/uw-covid-19-vaccination-policy?_ga=2.31959098.540467107.1629831944-1755727657.1623616042

Application Process:

The application process for UW positions may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process.  These assessments may include Workforce Authorization, Cover Letter and/or others.  Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment you will be prompted to do so the next time you access your “My Jobs” page. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed.