Research Assistant (ENLACES) - Student Worker

About this role

Compensation Range:
: $0.00 - $0.00Position Description
The Research Assistant for ENLACES, is a part-time (10-20 hours per week), graduate student worker opportunity with National University. Working directly under the leadership and supervision of the ENLACES Research Director, the Research Assistant plays a vital role in supporting research project start-up activities, including establishing operational workflows, creating project timelines, building data collection protocols, drafting IRB applications, coordinating initial partner convenings, and grant proposal drafting. Additional ongoing research activities include mixed-methods data collection, analysis, and reporting. ENLACES is committed to advancing culturally responsive, equity-focused research designed to promote continuous improvement of ENLACES initiatives to meet the needs of diverse and historically underserved populations.

The incumbent plays a key role to enact, implement, and write-up implementation and impact research, generate research deliverables, and support research-practice partnerships (RPPs) across the organization —such as literature reviews, research and policy reviews, peer-reviewed publication drafts, grant proposal drafts, and practitioner-friendly research briefs. This role provides graduate students with hands-on research mentorship, high-level project management experience, and scholarly writing opportunities in real world community-engaged research.

Opportunities will also be provided for the Research Assistant to engage internal and external research partners, provide support to external evaluators, and ensure tasks are executed in a timely manner. Specifically, this individual will conduct research to ensure a deeper understanding of ENLACES programs and initiatives for equity and excellence, as well as helping to ensure sustainability of the university-community partnerships.

Essential Functions:

• Participate in regular ENLACES research team meetings and research-practice partnership convenings. (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, as needed).

• Provide project management support for start-up and ongoing projects by tracking priorities, creating and managing timelines, establishing workflow systems, and reporting deliverable statuses.

• Provide administrative support for day-to-day operations, including task monitoring, appointment scheduling, meeting documentation, and follow-up communication with internal and external partners.

• Assist with coordination and planning logistics for major research, community, and policy projects.

• Engage in mixed-methods research activities, including survey and qualitative interview protocol design, interview and focus group facilitation, document analysis, and observational data collection.

• Communicate with internal and external ENLACES partners to coordinate data collection activities, interpret analytic findings, and share results.

• Perform data management duties, including data cleaning, data entry, data validation, database structuring, and maintaining secure, de-identified participant data in compliance with data privacy standards.

• Analyze both quantitative data (descriptive and correlational data) and qualitative data (thematic analysis) in collaboration with leadership and partners.

• Draft comprehensive data reports, executive summaries, practitioner-friendly briefs, and manuscript sections for peer-reviewed publications in collaboration with leadership and partners.

• Synthesize and write up literature reviews and research briefs focused on priority topics identified with the ENLACES Research Director and research team partners.

• Help prepare presentation materials, posters, and slide decks for academic conferences, policy briefings, and partner meetings.

• Draft Institutional Review Board (IRB) applications, protocol modifications, and compliance documentation for projects.

• Collaborate with external evaluators and community partners to execute collaborative research projects and engage in authentic research-practice partnerships (RPPs).

• Ensure research projects consistently incorporate equity principles (e.g., disaggregation of data, evaluation of program accessibility, and assessment of outcomes across diverse student demographics).

• Complete special projects and other research-related duties as assigned by the ENLACES Research Director.

Requirements:
Education & Experience:

• Must be a Full-time or part-time graduate student in any school or program at National University

• Bachelor’s Degree is required.

• Minimum of 1-2 years of experience in education, social science research, or policy.

Competencies/Technical/Functional Skills:

• Exceptional interpersonal, teamwork, and collaboration skills.

• Demonstrated ability to work with underserved populations in high-need communities.

• Excellent oral and written communication skills.

• Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage timelines and deliverables independently.

• Experience in social and emotional development, K-12 education, or culturally responsive practices.

• General understanding of best practices in research and evaluation.

• Ability to analyze qualitative data and basic quantitative data.

• Proficient computer and standard office equipment skills.

• Excellent phone/Zoom etiquette.

• Conveys high integrity and honesty.

• Ability to handle ambiguity.

• Ability to travel, with possible overnight involved (when allowed).

• Experience with qualitative coding software (NVivo) and basic quantitative tools (SPSS, Excel) (preferred).

• Knowledge of IRB processes, grant proposal drafting, and research-practice partnerships (preferred).

Location: Remote, USA

Candidate receiving offers will be offered a salary/pay rate commensurate with experience that vary based on a candidate’s qualifications, skills, and competencies. Absent exceptional circumstances, candidates will be offered a salary within this range for this position. The minimum…