Job Information

University of Utah Research Data Manager/Analyst in Salt Lake City, Utah

Details

Open Date 03/27/2023

Requisition Number PRN34351B

Job Title Database Analyst

Working Title Research Data Manager/Analyst

Job Grade F

FLSA Code Computer Employee

Patient Sensitive Job Code? No

Standard Hours per Week 40

Full Time or Part Time? Full Time

Shift Day

Work Schedule Summary

VP Area President

Department 01852 - HCI David Wetter Research Prog

Location Campus

City Salt Lake City, UT

Type of Recruitment External Posting

Pay Rate Range 62500 to 75000

Close Date

Open Until Filled Yes

Job Summary

The Center for Health Outcomes and Population Equity ( HOPE ) at the University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute, headed by Dr. David Wetter, conducts community-based, implementation science, and clinical research that focuses on health inequities, health care system change, behavioral risk factors, chronic and infectious disease prevention, screening and vaccination, healthcare systems, and the use of state of the science mobile health technologies for both assessment and intervention. The center’s expansive portfolio of research projects collect data from a variety of sources that include ecological momentary assessments, electronic health records, population health management, global positioning system/geographical information system, on-body sensors/accelerometry, survey, and text messaging. Please visit our website to become more familiar with our current research and to learn more about the center: https://uofuhealth.utah.edu/huntsman/labs/center-for-hope/.

The Center is looking to expand its data management and analysis capacity. We are seeking a Research Data Manager/Analyst who is excited to take a thoughtful approach to examine and organize complex data. With the support and mentorship from the Lead Data Manager and Data team, the position will primarily support the Center’s mission by ensuring data for our studies are safely and accurately processed, cleaned, and documented to enable monitoring of ongoing study quality and perform valid statistical analysis. As the Research Data Manager/Analyst will build data pipelines for our data, the ideal candidate should possess strong programming skills to work, manipulate, and understand complex data. We are looking for candidate who writes code that is well commented, organized, and efficient. Candidate is also expected to utilize metadata, verify assumptions about the data, and deliver data products that enable reproducibility. Moreover, we are seeking a programmer with an investigative mindset to explore nuances of the data and use data to drive decisions about their preparation and analysis along the data pipeline.

Beyond programming, the position will contribute to documentation of the datasets and building reproducible reports about data quality and study progress. Also, the position will contribute meet with others to explain data processes and gather input for decisions about data. As such, the ability to communicate verbally (written and oral) and build figures to communicate visually is essential for success in the role. Data exploration along the way to the goals mentioned above often can inform and lead to decisions around current and future study design, as well as driving hypotheses about the data and methods used for analyses, so a strong interest in the research subject matter and equity-focused public health goals is helpful.

The Center is concurrently accepting applications for both a Research Data Coordinator and Research Data Manager/Analyst. It’s effectively the same position, but we hope to cast a wider net regarding experience level, with the eventual goal of finding an applicant with the right fit. All applicants for either requisition will be considered for both. A final decision will be made based on the final candidate’s skills and experience.

· Bachelor’s Degree including coursework that involves programming with data and a minimum of 2 year of experience conducting data management-related or statistical tasks in a professional/research environment. Alternatively, a recent Master’s graduate with substantial data experience or someone with 10 years of related experience is is sufficient. We aim to prioritize programming proficiency related to our domain over sheer number of years of experience. Especially relevant degrees include biostatistics, statistics, math, computer science, epidemiology, psychology, sociology, or public health.

· Fluency in R, SAS , Python, or SQL focused around tasks of data import, cleaning, basic analysis, and writing functions/macros.

· Experience creating data deliverables (full datasets or data summaries).

Huntsman Cancer Institute ( HCI ) is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to hiring individuals whose merit and experience promote a diverse, inclusive, anti-racist workforce and culture.

Each employee has a unique background and life experience. We believe that maximizing diversity fuels the success of our organization. In your cover letter or during your interview, we invite you to share how your background, beliefs, and experience will prepare you to be effective in working in an environment that values diversity and is committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Learn more about HCI’s commitments at huntsmancancer.org/edi and/or contact HCI’s Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Responsibilities

1. Support and expand key data pipelines for new and existing research studies that ensures sanctity of data that is user-friendly for investigators. This consists of building new pipelines from scratch or updating existing programs. Bringing a data engineering and statistical mindset will be helpful.

2. Develop reporting tools to investigate and summarize key measures of the data quality and fidelity of study implementation.

3. Aim to understand and become an expert on the structure and intricacies of incoming data sources. To do this well, one will need to communicate with team members and collaborators to understand unfamiliar/ambiguous data, as well as explore the data thoroughly on one’s own. On a technical note, this might include interacting with relational databases, deconstructing JSON data, parsing codebooks for metadata, etc.

4. Contribute to user-friendly documentation about the derived datasets for researchers to use for analyses as well as to more detailed, thorough, and technical documentation about the data and procedures will be more detailed, thorough, and technical.

5. Work with researchers and clinicians to help them understand nuances of and takeaways from the data.

6. Design data collection tools / survey instruments in REDCap or Qualtrics

7. Steward data security throughout all aspects of our projects by use of procedures and best practices that are in concordance with HIPAA , NIH , PCORI , University of Utah regulations, and our data use agreements.

8. For someone with the relevant skills, serve as a programmer to implement statistical analyses on the data for investigators and contribute to the development of the analysis plan.

Work Environment and Level of Frequency typically required

Nearly Continuously: Office environment.

Physical Requirements and Level of Frequency that may be required

Nearly Continuously: Sitting, hearing, listening, talking.

Often: Repetitive hand motion (such as typing), walking.

Seldom: Bending, reaching overhead.

Minimum Qualifications

Requires a bachelor’s degree in a related area or equivalency (one year of education can be substituted for two years of related work experience) and 2-4 years of experience in the field or in a related area.

Preferences

· The data management codebase is primarily conducted in R, so R proficiency would be ideal.

· Skills to develop reproducible reports using tools like R Markdown, Quarto, or Jupyter Notebooks.

· Ability to create custom data visualizations as a means to communicate trends among the data.

· A survey researcher’s mindset to think about issues of various types of survey error: sampling, nonresponse, measurement, and processing errors.

· Experience working at the command line in a Windows or Linux-like environment. Scheduling processes and familiarity with working from remote servers is also helpful.

· A general statistical knowledge that includes standard errors, hypothesis testing, bias-variance tradeoffs, and regression modeling. Theoretical knowledge of or practical experience with longitudinal data is also helpful.

· Experience processing, visualizing, or analyzing GIS data.

· Seeing as a notable portion of our data reside in relational databases, it will be helpful to write and understand SQL queries that extract them. The ability to develop new tables and views, along with other database skills is even more helpful.

· Experience using git or other version control software, ideally as a means to collaborate with others.

· Bringing growth mindset, enthusiasm, and compassion to your work and interactions with others.

Type Benefited Staff

Special Instructions Summary

Additional Information

The University of Utah values candidates who have experience working in settings with students from diverse backgrounds and possess a strong commitment to improving access to higher education for historically underrepresented students.

Individuals from historically underrepresented groups, such as minorities, women, qualified persons with disabilities and protected veterans are encouraged to apply. Veterans’ preference is extended to qualified applicants, upon request and consistent with University policy and Utah state law. Upon request, reasonable accommodations in the application process will be provided to individuals with disabilities.

The University of Utah is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer and does not discriminate based upon race, ethnicity, color, religion, national origin, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy-related conditions, genetic information, or protected veteran’s status. The University does not discriminate on the basis of sex in the education program or activity that it operates, as required by Title IX and 34 CFR part 106. The requirement not to discriminate in education programs or activities extends to admission and employment. Inquiries about the application of Title IX and its regulations may be referred to the Title IX Coordinator, to the Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, or both.

To request a reasonable accommodation for a disability or if you or someone you know has experienced discrimination or sexual misconduct including sexual harassment, you may contact the Director/Title IX Coordinator in the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action:

Director/ Title IX Coordinator

Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action ( OEO /AA)

383 University Street, Level 1 OEO Suite

Salt Lake City, UT 84112

801-581-8365

oeo@utah.edu

Online reports may be submitted at oeo.utah.edu

For more information: https://www.utah.edu/nondiscrimination/

To inquire about this posting, email: employment@utah.edu (%20employment@utah.edu) or call 801-581-2300.

The University is a participating employer with Utah Retirement Systems (“URS”). Eligible new hires with prior URS service, may elect to enroll in URS if they make the election before they become eligible for retirement (usually the first day of work). Contact Human Resources at (801) 581-7447 for information. Individuals who previously retired and are receiving monthly retirement benefits from URS are subject to URS’ post-retirement rules and restrictions. Please contact Utah Retirement Systems at (801) 366-7770 or (800) 695-4877 or University Human Resource Management at (801) 581-7447 if you have questions regarding the post-retirement rules.

This position may require the successful completion of a criminal background check and/or drug screen.

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