Senior Research Associate; Mixed Methods

Senior Research Associate (Mixed Methods)

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The Prison Education Action Research Lab in the College of Education at the University of Utah seeks a Senior Research Associate with expertise in mixed methods. The Lab does research that advances educational justice for people and communities impacted by incarceration. We envision a world where colleges and universities lead the way in fostering greater access to opportunity for all people, including those directly impacted by the legal system.

The Senior Research Associate (SRA) will undertake a wide range of strategic, academic, and capacity‑building activities aimed at enabling and enhancing research on prison higher education and reentry. In collaboration with institutional and program leaders, the SRA will oversee strategic research advancement, communicate research opportunities and findings, foster collaboration within the team, and engage a leadership role on research projects. The person who fills this position will be responsible for training other researchers, supervising research staff, and overseeing graduate assistants, and will serve as primary research liaison to the Lab, the University, and other external partners.

The SRA will work under the supervision of the Lab Director. We strongly encourage applications from individuals directly impacted by incarceration and punishment systems.

• Serve as the lead/co‑lead researcher on multi‑PI research projects;
• Lead all phases of research design, planning, and execution of mixed methods research projects. This includes reviewing literature, developing research plans, developing data collection instruments and tools, piloting and validating data, analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, and drafting and editing research reports and scholarly manuscripts;
• Serve as senior liaison with stakeholders including state agencies and higher education institutions;
• Oversee IRB protocols, data use agreements, and compliance monitoring across multiple institutions and jurisdictions;
• Lead regular cross‑site meetings to align stakeholders;
• Coordinate secure data transfers and compliance across states and data providers;
• Maintain detailed documentation of data processing pipelines, codebooks, and metadata;
• Ensure appropriate data cleaning, harmonization, transformation, and documentation across diverse data sources;
• Apply intermediate and advanced statistical models and quantitative research designs;
• Design and oversee data linkage strategies across disparate administrative datasets;
• Design and conduct qualitative data collection (e.g., interviews, site visits, document analysis) and analysis;
• Lead mixed‑methods integration to synthesize qualitative and quantitative insights;
• Interact with stakeholders, partner institutions/organizations, political, governmental, funders, and corporate leaders related to research initiatives;
• Develop and present research results, in the form of technical reports, peer‑reviewed manuscripts, briefs, presentations, webinars, etc., to inform internal and external stakeholders of research projects;
• Mentor, train, and supervise a team of researchers;
• Other research related activities as assigned by the Lab Director.

Subject to allocation of appropriate funding, Dr. Castro (your supervisor) may authorize support for employee travel to academic conferences and approved professional development activities. All requests for these activities must receive prior approval before the event date.

• PhD in education, social sciences, or related field or comparable professional experience;
• Advanced knowledge of the field of higher education;
• 5+ years of experience in mixed methods research, including longitudinal, administrative, and qualitative data analyses;
• Demonstrated experience conducting applied social science and/or educational research, including implementing experimental and quasi‑experimental research designs, survey techniques, and program evaluation;
• Demonstrated experience with data cleaning, data migration, and management of multiple administrative data sets;
• Demonstrated commitment to and knowledge about…