Research Project Manager

The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) with Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, is seeking a dynamic professional to become our next Research Project Manager. The Research Project Manager will play a vital role in ensuring that the Center on Reinventing Public Education’s wide-ranging research continues to make a difference in the field of K-12 education policy.

Reporting to the Principal Investigator, the Project Manager manages project planning, workflow, and timelines for complex research projects across the center. This role has the opportunity to support research design and strategy in partnership with the Principal Investigator.

About CRPE

The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) is a nonpartisan research center founded in Seattle, Washington in 1993 and now led by investigators and collaborators at Arizona State University.

CRPE believes inequities are hard-wired into our public education system in both obvious and subtle ways. Our core business is studying efforts to rewire the system for ongoing improvement and excellence for every student—moving from the classroom, to the school, to policy implications. We envision a public education system that truly prepares every student for the challenges of the future. We fulfill this mission through:

• Research: We produce world-class research that’s interesting, significant, and trustworthy.
• Thought leadership: Our analyses look around the corner, comment on relevant issues, and propose new ideas.
• Engagement with leaders: We prioritize learning from city, state, and nonprofit leaders in their communities and we inform their work with evidence.

CRPE seeks team members who are passionate about systems change and embrace the idea that public education is a goal, not a set of institutions. The following core values guide our work:

• Curiosity: We look around the corner
• Excellence: We do world-class research that’s interesting, significant, and trustworthy
• Teamwork: We’re clear, focused, and productive together
• Ownership: We’re all responsible for CRPE’s success
• Communication:  We’re clear and honest with each other
• Camaraderie: We appreciate each other
• Integrity: We’re professional and ethical
• Equity: We are committed to an ongoing and active fight against racism and injustice

CRPE has played a national role in studying the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on school systems and policy, and we are studying new methods of schooling that will inform rebuilding efforts post-pandemic.

To learn more about our work, visit CRPE’s publications and newsroom pages, which feature our most recent thinking on education issues in play today.

Essential Duties

• Lead day-to-day project planning and management across research project(s) by creating project plans, developing and following up on timelines, anticipating and navigating around roadblocks and tracking progress against project deliverables and impact goals.
• Proactively convene project teams and serve as conduit to CRPE’s communications team and external stakeholders, such as funders and research partners, to achieve research goals.
• Provide relevant information to key CRPE staff to prepare all post-project reports, budget allocations and summaries/filings to ensure timely dissemination of information to internal and external partners.
• Partner with Director of Strategy and Operations on center-wide projects, including talent strategy-related to projects.
• Work closely with Principal Investigators to coordinate across a portfolio of projects; identify cross-cutting research themes that should be elevated for commentary or future proposals.
• Contribute extensively to project operations and workflows as needed, e.g., drafting outreach, preparing meeting materials, managing data collection processes, researching external impact opportunities.
• Partner with Principal Investigators to coordinate contributions from research project collaborators, e.g., contractors, student interns, and partner organizations.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and 5 years related experience; 1 of which are in project management, or any equivalent combination of experience and /or education from which comparable knowledge, skills and abilities have been achieved.

Desired Qualifications

• Ability to communicate clearly, directly, and empathetically in all interactions, including verbal and written communications, one-on-one conversations, and in group settings.
• Evidence of working knowledge of, and intellectual curiosity about, key issues in public education.
• Three (3) years of previous experience that demonstrated the ability to effectively manage complex projects, including breaking a broad vision into measurable components and balancing interdependent work streams.
• Ability to creatively problem solve in a dynamic environment, such as anticipating project needs and roadblocks, weighing trade-offs when making decisions, synthesizing the most important information, and providing proposed solutions.
• Comfortable with “managing up” to lead project structure, approaches, and components of work in partnership with the Principal Investigator.
• Experience with project management software and google suite. CRPE is a mac-environment that primarily uses AirTable, Slack, and Zoom for collaboration as we are a mostly remote organization.

Working Environment

• CRPE offices are located in Seattle, Washington, but CRPE welcomes remote applicants from anywhere in the United States
• Ability to work evening and weekend hours, as necessary, on short or limited notice
• Must be available for occasional travel to conferences and meetings
• Activities are performed in an environmentally controlled office setting subject to extended periods of sitting, keyboarding and manipulating a computer mouse
• Regular activities require ability to quickly change priorities
• Ability to clearly communicate to perform essential functions