Associate Director, Engineering Research Administration Services

Associate Director, Engineering Research Administration Services

Associate Director, Engineering Research Administration Services

Posting Number req
27028

Department Engineering Administration

Department Website Link (Use the "Apply for this Job" box below)./index

Location Tucson Campus

Address Tucson, AZ USA

Interested in leading the grant development process while supporting innovative research in the College of Engineering? This role offers the opportunity to provide comprehensive pre-award administrative services, guide faculty through complex proposal requirements, and help secure funding for research initiatives while providing leadership and operational direction to a talented team.

The primary purpose of Associate Director, Engineering Research Administration Services is to provide comprehensive pre-award administrative services for research proposals and extramural support agreements in the College of Engineering. The role is responsible for overseeing the entire grant application process including reading complex requests for proposal, advising faculty on university and sponsor submission requirements, developing proposal documents including budgets, ensuring strict compliance with governmental regulations, and coordinating with internal stakeholders to secure funding commitments.

Additionally, the manager provides leadership and operational direction to a dedicated team while collaborating with principal investigators and institutional stakeholders. This position will supervise a minimum of 2 full-time employees.

Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.

Outstanding U of A benefits include health, dental, and vision insurance plans; life insurance and disability programs; paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays; U of A/ASU/NAU tuition reduction for the employee and qualified family members; retirement plans; access to U of A recreation and cultural activities; and more!

• Develops and implements operational plans and policies, provides leadership and oversight for pre-award proposal development by collaborating directly with principal investigators and federal, state, or private sponsors to facilitate competitive funding requests.
• Responsible for reading and interpreting RFPs and manages the development and review of applications to ensure strict alignment with institutional policies and agency solicitation guidelines prior to submission.
• Oversees faculty requests for proposal support and actively manages the pre-award pipeline to adjust, reassign, and distribute incoming proposal loads across the team during peak sponsor deadlines.
• Provides guidance and support to team members to secure sub-award budgets, multi-disciplinary consortia, and subrecipient commitment paperwork from collaborating entities.
• Conducts critical precursory reviews of incoming award documents, analyzing terms, conditions, and compliance frameworks to streamline subsequent negotiations and expedite award acceptance by the university.
• Supervises and provides leadership, coaching, and ongoing training to a minimum of two (2) full-time employees, establishing priorities and supporting consistent, high-quality service delivery across the team.
• Provides oversight for the optimization and day-to-day administration of the college's preaward electronic research administration (eRA) system to streamline the sponsored projects lifecycle.
• Manage an internal Google smartsheet proposal tracking form ensuring accurate and timely tracking of pre-award activity. Oversee system-wide data integrity, managing internal routing workflows, institutional electronic approvals and proposal validation protocols within smartsheet to better track preaward activity. Support electronic routing activity in Kuali Research.
• Acts as a primary technical liaison between academic departments, database specialists, and IT teams to troubleshoot system vulnerabilities, configure data compliance fields, and generate reports for senior leadership to review in both smart sheets and via the institutional data warehouse.
• Designs, builds, tests, and deploys tools for budget development, fringe/F&A calculation sheets, and multi-year financial forecasting templates to eliminate mathematical discrepancies across the pre-award unit. Troubleshoot technical difficulties in proposal development forms and provide guidance and support to team members on sponsor submission platforms. Assists in the development of submission compliance checklists based on sponsor…