ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

Company: University of Washington
Location: Seattle
Posted on: May 24, 2025

Job Description:

If you are using a screen reader and experience any difficulty accessing our web pages, please call 206-543-2544 or email UWHires and we will be happy to assist you. jump to contentJob Location Detail: Hybrid / In-Person at the Roosevelt location.Posting Date: 05/19/2025Closing Info: Closes On 06/02/2025Other Compensation:Shift: First ShiftBenefits: 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.As a UW employee, you have a unique opportunity to change lives on our campuses, in our state and around the world. UW employees offer their boundless energy, creative problem-solving skills and dedication to build stronger minds and a healthier world.

UW faculty and staff also enjoy outstanding benefits, professional growth opportunities and unique resources in an environment noted for diversity, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits and natural beauty.

The Department of Family Medicine (DFM) has an outstanding opportunity for an Associate Director of Research.

The DFM is large and complex with approximately 280 paid faculty, 30 residents, 6 fellows, 100 staff, and 1400 volunteer faculty. It has one of the largest research efforts of any family medicine department in the U.S., and the UW Family Medicine Residency is a top ranked academic program nationally. The DFM has an overall budget of approximately $60m, consisting of clinical revenue, sponsored research funds, endowments and gifts, state funds and affiliated hospital funding associated with the academic programs within the department.

The department is made up of eight sections: Residency, Sports Medicine, Palliative Care, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Research, Medical Student Education, MEDEX Northwest, and The WWAMI Family Medicine Residency Network. Additionally, the UW Medicine Primary Care Network has close affiliations with the department clinical enterprise. Our programs strive to achieve integration with research and training, accelerating the transfer and dissemination of new knowledge.

The position of Associate Director, Research reports to the Vice Chair of Finance and Administration for the Department of Family Medicine. This position is responsible for providing administrative oversight of all research activities of the department. This includes grants and contracts preparation, compliance, reporting, training and research financial management. This position is responsible for research budgeting, establishing grants administration systems for the department and oversight of revenues and expenditures related to grants. This position is also responsible for managing special projects that impact the Department at large, including managing the space reporting systems for the entire Department of Family Medicine. The position also partners with the Vice Chair, Chair, and department faculty and staff leadership and various affiliate institutions on strategic planning initiatives, including preparing business proforma's and financial planning. The position is responsible for providing high-level grants compliance management and centralized financial and pre- and post-award grants management services to the department. The Associate Director is responsible for the design and implementation of most centralized systems for grants administration on behalf of the Department and for ensuring that the department's policies and procedures are in compliance with those of the UW and the SOM.

The Associate Director must work in partnership with the Department Chair, Vice Chairs and other Associate Directors, to manage major departmental areas that interact with and impact the entire Department, which includes 100 regular faculty, 100 staff, 130 clinical faculty and 1700 volunteer faculty and an annual budget of $40 million. This management position requires leadership of a variety of short-term and long-term projects to achieve desired outcomes. This position will operate in a highly dynamic and evolving atmosphere, which requires the ability to juggle priorities and strategically align workflow to meet senior leadership requirements. This position will have responsibility for strategic planning, policy making, and maintaining organizational effectiveness. The Associate Director will often see, hear and interact with a variety of information from the benign to extremely sensitive, and the individual must exercise good judgment to protect personal information or department strategic planning initiative details. The working conditions of the position will be a hybrid on-site schedule.

The Associate Director position is an exceedingly active one that requires the skill and diplomacy to balance many diverse issues at one time. As there are constant demands from faculty and staff regarding budgeting, financial, and administrative actions, the individual must have skills in the following areas: ability to provide consultative client service with diverse groups of people; provide leadership and consultative direction to staff; ability to maintain confidentiality; analytical skills; complex problem resolution; and the ability to interpret complex policies, rules and laws. This position requires a high degree of diplomacy, tact, independent decision-making and problem solving, with the ability to prioritize many competing tasks from the chair, director, faculty and managers.

The Associate Director will provide leadership for the overall administration of Research and grants in the department and lead the development of policies and procedures to improve the effectiveness of administering research budgets and research operations. The position will work with leadership from sections and centers in the department and internal UW partners such as UW Procurement and Contracting, UW Internal Audit, and the SOM Dean's Office. In addition, this position is the departmental expert for state and federal financial compliance guidelines. The annual total budget for which this position has authority is approximately $5 million but anticipated to grow.

The Associate Director will act as the principal liaison with all individuals, groups and organizations participating in the Research enterprise to ensure full alignment of all facets of research administration.

Measures of success for the position will be the development of infrastructure and processes to provide a positive experience for all participants in this critical growth area, and to increase the quality, quantity and synergy of research proposals, grants and contracts, for the Department.

The research mission is a vital contributor to the success of the University and the School of Medicine, making sure that we not only provide excellent health care today but that we help develop better healthcare for tomorrow. High quality and effective research administration assures the continued success of this mission critical area. In the complex and consistently changing research environment, having highly effective staff leadership focused specifically on this area will play a key role in securing new resources, including increasing diversity of funding sources, assuring alignment of participants throughout the organizations, especially in the area of research integration with our clinical facilities, and creating new opportunities for collaboration across the School of Medicine and the University at-large.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Research Management:

Under the direction of this position, the Research administration team is comprised of two grants and contracts specialists/managers, a budget fiscal analyst, a fiscal specialist, and a program coordinator. The Associate Director manages this team and leads its work processes to ensure centralized grants administration services are delivered consistently to the department.

Compliance and analysis: (30%)

• The Associate Director will supervise department pre- and post-award management and provide guidance to faculty in understanding the fiscal and other research administration aspects of their sponsored agreements.
  
• Is the lead analyst for the department on grants that go through OSP and Research section contracts that route through the SOM Dean's Office.
  
• Tracks and delegates the management of Faculty Effort Certifications, Grants and Contracts Certification Reports, and interinstitutional agreements for faculty and staff located across multiple locations and with joint appointments in multiple departments to ensure compliance.
  
• Exercises independent judgment with signature authority on the allocation of funding sources for both payroll distributions and departmental purchases.
  
• The Associate Director serves as the primary counsel to the Vice Chair of Finance and Administration and PIs on departmental fiscal matters as they relate to research and grants.
  
• Tracks federal and non-federal compliance updates and ensures dissemination of information to the department.
  
• The Associate Director will develop policies and procedures for pre- and post-award administrative functions for the Department.
  
• Works with Chair and Vice Chair for Finance and Administration to develop and manage grants administration systems.
  
  Pre- and post-award management of department's portfolio of research and other grants: (30%)
  
  
• The Associate Director will be a primary resource to grants administration staff, individual researchers, investigator-led groups and centers to facilitate the development of proposals for support that achieve the highest level of quality and align with the overall research strategic plan for the department.
  
• As the Chair's delegate, this individual will provide comprehensive quality assurance for all grants, contracts and subcontracts processed through the department.
  
• Represents the department and its research portfolio at UW MRAM, the SOM Research Workgroup, and the Research Administrator Peer Network.
  
  Research Section Management: (20%)
  
  
• Manage operations and administrative leadership for research staff, scientific staff and faculty in the research section, currently consisting of -50 employees in total.
  
• Manage finances and budget reconciliation for the research section labor and operations expenses.
  
• Manage hiring, promotions, retention, onboarding, offboarding, and overall staff oversight of -40 staff and student workers in the research section.
  
  Departmental Leadership, administration, process improvement and other duties as assigned: (20%)
  
  
• The Associate Director will serve as a senior leader in the department and will be a regular member of DFM Leadership Meetings as well as other administrative team meetings and represent the department on various SOM and UW committees as requested.
  
• The position will support key strategic initiatives to support the department's mission by leading or participating in regular planning sessions with relevant stakeholders, including department faculty, staff, and trainees.
  
• The Associate Director will work with the Vice Chair of Finance and Administration and the Chair to assign resources in areas of need.
  
• The Associate Director provides consult to the Chair, Vice Chair of Finance and Administration, Executive Vice Chair, Communications Manager, and the Assistant Director for IT.
  
• The position will work to increase efficiencies within the department.
  
• The position will Incorporate CPI techniques into policies and procedures and ensures end users have the most streamlines experience possible.
  
• The Associate Director leads the grants management team and research operations. The Associate Director will supervise the department's grants management teams. This includes the hiring, training, and assignment of duties and hours for these positions, and the recommendation of corrective actions as needed.
  
  MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
  
  
• At least 9 years relevant work experience, including management experience at the University of Washington and knowledge of UW systems, procedures, policies and offices.
  
  Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration.
  
  ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
  
  
• Advanced expertise in Excel is essential.
  
• Successful history and ability to work on large, complex projects in a deadline-driven environment.
  
• Proven expertise managing and developing budgets and reports.
  
• Ability to independently and efficiently complete detailed transactions and routine fiscal work when needed.
  
• Proven ability to communicate effectively with high-level academic and medical professionals.
  
• Ability to work with a broad range of people with tact and discretion.
  
• Must have strong interpersonal skills and the ability to develop and lead teams to meet goals and objectives in a timely manner.
  
• Ability to work independently with exceptional organizational, planning, and time-management skills.
  
• Excellent writing skills.
  
• Excellent verbal communication skills with experience presenting to large and diverse groups.
  
• Experience with the development of research proposals from technical, organizational, and administrative perspectives.
  
• Experience working with pre-award and post-award grant and contract administration within a University setting.
  
• Experience in developing and monitoring metrics that measure success.
  
• Strong background in regulatory compliance.
  
  DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS
  
  
• Experience participating in sponsored research projects.
  
• Experience with multi-institutional collaborations that involve federal agencies, institutions of higher education, non-profits, and other countries.
  
• Experience working with pre-award and post-award grant and contract administration within a university setting.
  
• Experience working with various sponsored funding organizations to develop successful proposals to support research.
  
• Excellent organizational skills with experience in designing and managing multifaceted projects that will support strategic planning and operational success.
  
  Application Process: The application process 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 Work 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 access 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.Committed to attracting and retaining a diverse staff, the University of Washington will honor your experiences, perspectives and unique identity. Together, our community strives to create and maintain working and learning environments that are inclusive, equitable and welcoming.To request disability accommodation in the application process, contact the Disability Services Office at 206-543-6450 or dso@uw.edu .Applicants considered for this position will be required to disclose if they are the subject of any substantiated findings or current investigations related to sexual misconduct at their current employment and past employment. Disclosure is required under Washington state law .
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