Post Award Administrator in Chicago, Illinois

Post-Award Administrator

The job provides professional support for pre-award and/or post-award activities relating to grant and contract proposals and funding within a department or unit. Pre-award activities include research, preparing applications, and editing proposals. Post-award activities include compliance monitoring, payment processing, and salary allocations. Performs work with moderate guidance and utilizes knowledge of University and business drivers. The Post-Award Administrator provides financial management in an intensive customer service environment for the Department of Medicine.

This position is eligible for a flexible work arrangement.

Responsibilities

• Serves as a primary account administrator for account owners.
• Creates accounts and works within the Financial Accounting System.
• Allocates, authorizes, monitors, and controls expenses.
• Manages check and wire-transfer deposits, and earnings invoicing for industry funded clinical trials.
• Maintains accurate accounts receivable and payable data in VETS (Visit Earnings Tracking System).
• Maintains, oversees, reconciles, and corrects errors in accounts.
• Processes clinical research and core bills for payment. Works with other administrators on the procurement process including purchasing, internal requisitioning, and personal travel reimbursements.
• Allocates and authorizes expenditures.
• May work with administrators to manage financial and administrative aspects of sponsored project proposal preparation, submission, and post-award grant administration.
• Advises and assists in most relations and communications with funding agencies, subcontractors, and others.
• Monitors expenditures on approximately 560 active individual faculty accounts.
• Proposes solutions to discovered problems and fixes according to proper policy and procedure.
• Compares actual spending to original budget and identifies any variances with particular attention being paid to faculty salary.
• Develops a working knowledge of University policies and procedures as well as a working knowledge of policies and procedures of various funding agencies.
• Creates and maintains excel spreadsheets and Access databases as necessary to track Section finances.
• Works closely with Section Administrators to effectively manage faculty accounts and ensure proper spending.
• Reviews all applications against University guidelines, in addition to drafting progress reports, non-competing applications, amendments, and budgeting. Responsible for all data entry and preparation of grant reports and trend analysis.
• Prepares summaries of grants and effort allocations for Principal Investigators, meets with them and responds to their questions. Coordinates with other departments/units/divisions regarding multi investigator grants. Serves as department contact for annual audits and agency site visits.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Minimum Qualifications

• Education:
  
  Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.
• Work Experience:
  
  Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 2-5 years of work experience in a related job discipline.

Preferred Qualifications

• Education:
  
  Bachelor's degree or higher in accounting, business administration, or science.
• Experience:
  
  Administrative, accounting, or grant and contract administration experience. Budgets, ledgers, invoices, and fiscal reporting. One or more aspects of sponsored program administration in a research environment. Accounting systems.

Preferred Competencies

• Strong analytical and organizational skills.
• Strong interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
• Work closely with senior University officials.
• Independently complete projects on time and accurately with minimal supervision.
• Flexibility and ability to work effectively under considerable time pressure.

Working Conditions

• Work non-traditional hours.

Application Documents

• Resume/CV (required)
• Cover Letter (required)

The University of Chicago uses AI-assisted tools to streamline and augment some recruitment processes; however, AI is not used to make hiring decisions. When applying, the document(s) MUST be uploaded via the My Experience page, in the section titled Application Documents of the application. The University of Chicago offers a wide range of benefits programs and resources for eligible employees, including health, retirement, and paid time off.

Information about the benefit offerings can be found in the Benefits Guidebook. The University of Chicago is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or expression, national or ethnic origin, shared ancestry, age, status as an individual with a disability, military or veteran status, genetic information, or other protected classes under the law.