Research Data Specialist

The University of Mississippi — fondly referred to as Ole Miss — stands as a premier public research institution with a proud legacy of academic distinction. We are devoted to nurturing a vibrant, inclusive community where every member — student, faculty, and staff — can achieve their fullest potential.

Join the Ole Miss Family — Build Your Legacy Here!

Department:

Office for Research & Econ Development ( ORED) empowers University of Mississippi research that advances knowledge, addresses social challenges, and propels economic growth locally and nationally. We support researchers and creative scholars, foster collaboration, and facilitate the translation of innovation into progress. As our legacy home-grown information system comes to the end of its life, we have licensed and are implementing Cayuse, a state-of-the art, cloud-based enterprise system to manage the increasingly complex landscape of research compliance and grant administration.

At the same time, UM is in the process of migrating the HR and payroll enterprise to Workday, the student information system to Ellucian Banner, and the faculty activity reporting system to Watermark Faculty Success. A central data warehouse and analytics and reporting tool called Insights will also be implemented to bring in data from these and other campus systems to enable faster insights and more informed decisions-making campus wide.

Meanwhile, the federal research funding environment is rapidly changing, creating new challenges and opportunities for responding to new priorities, competing for grants, and thriving in a shifting regulatory environment.

Job Summary:

The Office for Research and Economic Development (ORED) at the University of Mississippi is seeking an experienced data and systems professional who is interested in applying technical expertise to support a growing research enterprise. Working alongside research administrators, this position will design, develop, and maintain data solutions that improve institutional decision-making and strengthen research administration. Initially, the position will focus on supporting the implementation of Cayuse, including system configuration, data management, reporting, technical support, integration with Workday, and migration of legacy research administration data into the University's enterprise data environment.

As these systems mature, the position will expand to developing institutional datasets, dashboards, reports, predictive models, and other analytical tools that help leadership monitor research performance, identify opportunities, improve operational effectiveness, strengthen regulatory compliance, and support strategic investment in research.

Job Description:

Examples of Work Performed:

Data Engineering:
Develop Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) scripts to extract data or clean data, automate tasks, supports business processes

Liaise with vendors and central IT professionals to identify, propose, develop, and test integrations across enterprise systems

Develop data dashboards and reports for ORED leaders and campus research stakeholders
• Communicate with research administration subject matter experts to define business needs and propose data-driven solutions

Interact with technical experts to identify and implement cross-system integrations (e.g., moving data from Cayuse to Workday and vice versa)
Collaborate across institutional units to leverage data resources and subject matter expertise in support of analytical and reporting needs

Use data extraction tools (SQL/No

SQL/Python) to develop queries to answer research and analysis questions

Develop and implement data solutions and analyses to help leaders and stakeholders understand, comply with, and thrive under the large, evolving, and complex federal rules and regulations related to grants and contracts.

Job Responsibilities:

Bachelor's degree—preferably in Data Science, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related discipline. If the candidate holds a bachelor’s in an unrelated field but has substantial experience in related roles, they are encouraged to apply and should explain their qualifications and expertise as it relates to this position in…