Research Scientist

Research Scientist

The Center for Health and Safety Culture is seeking a Research Scientist to contribute to Center research, technology transfer and support services by making contributions to the definition, measurement, and transformation of culture, evaluation services, training, and/or training resources. We are a highly collaborative team of researchers and scientists from diverse fields who, together, share in their passion for improving health and safety and strengthening communities.

Every day we come to work eager to solve complex problems and make the world a better place. This position will support the team across multiple projects addressing health and safety. This position offers an exciting opportunity for an individual with a passion for growing safe and healthy behaviors within communities.

Position Number - 4C0107

Department
- Center for Health & Safety Culture

Division
- Office of Research and Economic Development

Appointment Type
- Professional

Contract Term
- Fiscal Year

FLSA
- Exempt

Union Affiliation
- Exempt from Collective Bargaining

FTE - 0.5 - 1.0

Benefits Eligible
- Eligible

Salary
- Salary starting at $65,000 annually, commensurate with experience, education, and qualifications

Contract Type - LOA

Recruitment Type
- Open

General Statement
- The Center for Health and Safety Culture (CHSC) is an interdisciplinary center serving communities and organizations through research, training, and support services to cultivate healthy and safe cultures. We are a highly motivated and collaborative center that is passionate about serving communities to improve their quality of life. We recognize that every community has its own strengths that should be honored and celebrated.

Our research goal is to help communities recognize, grow, and align these strengths with their community goals. We also provide training and guidance to increase the capacity of communities to achieve these goals. The Center is dedicated to applying research to develop sustainable solutions to complex social problems. This new member will join an interdisciplinary team of researchers who are dedicated to each other and the mission to serve organizations and communities in the public health areas of traffic safety, interpersonal violence, substance misuse, and child wellbeing.

The success of this position will be measured in terms of the diversity and sustainability of their resulting research portfolio that will significantly contribute to the Center's work.

Program:
Our research focuses on understanding how culture impacts behavior – especially behavior associated with health and safety. Our work is grounded in a behavioral model based on the social environment and the influence of culture defined as the belief system shared within an identified group. This broadly operating model to measure, analyze, and transform culture is called "Positive Culture Framework" (PCF).

This framework is grounded in validated psychological models of human social behaviors related to health and safety. We address a variety of issues working with tribal, federal, state, and community agencies as well as private non-profit and for-profit organizations and companies. Current research projects include promoting child and family wellbeing, growing traffic safety culture, and preventing and addressing substance misuse and stigma.

Duties and Responsibilities
- Develop content for substance misuse prevention and implementation strategies. Develop resources and tools to grow parenting skills, including helping parents to implement resources through direct coaching support. Translate knowledge of child development and developmentally appropriate practice, school readiness, and family engagement strategies to support resource and tool development. Work directly with school staff to support youth social and emotional skill development.

Support community stakeholders to promote and grow supportive mental, emotional, and behavioral health practices. Develop resources and tools to support the Safe System Approach in traffic safety (e.g., focusing on trauma-informed practices for post-crash care, focusing on social and emotional skill development and emotion…