Executive Director (Academic Coordinator III -FY)

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

The Executive Director of the California Center for Population Research (CCPR) at UCLA provides vision, creativity, and leadership to shape the Center's future and guide a team of researchers and staff. This role collaborates with MPDS program leadership, advisory councils, and funders to advance research in population science, training, and dissemination.

Responsibilities include strategic planning, budget oversight, fundraising, and ensuring academic programs run smoothly, including MPDS

Qualifications

• Ability to provide vision, creativity, and leadership to build the Center's future and guide a team of researchers and staff.
• Experience leading a center with cross-disciplinary collaboration and advisory councils.
• Strong fundraising and financial stewardship skills to support research and training programs.
• Ability to engage with funders, policymakers, and university leadership to advance strategic goals.

Responsibilities

• Executive strategic and operational responsibility for CCPR's research activities and staff.
• Oversee administration, governance, and coordination of large research programs with complex funding.
• Develop, implement, and manage new research initiatives in population research and training programs.
• Provide oversight of MPDS program operations, including admissions, curriculum administration, and budget.
• Collaborate with the MPDS Faculty Director and FAC to ensure program effectiveness and reporting.

Skills

Leadership

Fundraising

Strategic planning

Budgeting

Stakeholder management

Education

Master's degree

Job description

Established in 1998, the California Center for Population Research (CCPR) has since been a leading research center for research and training in demography. Since 2000, CCPR has been supported by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Research Infrastructure Grants and Research Training Grants. CCPR is comprised of over 150 faculty researchers and over 120 graduate student affiliates from the College of Letters and Science, School of Public Health, School of Public Affairs, Anderson Business School, School of Medicine and Education from the Graduate Division. CCPR's mission is dedicated to training the next generation of demographers; to conducting rigorous independent research on family demography, household dynamics and individual well-being; family change and diversity; population distribution, neighborhood dynamics and individual welfare; and reproductive and population health.

With fast-paced growth, CCPR has incorporated several research centers: the California Census Research Data Center, Center for Social Statistics, German Data Center, and the California Policy Lab. In addition, CCPR is the intellectual home of the Master of Population Data Science (MPDS) program, a self-supporting graduate professional degree program (SSGPDP), which prepares students for data-intensive careers in industry, government, and the nonprofit sector.

In partnership with the CCPR Faculty Director, the Executive Director provides vision, creativity, and leadership to build the Center's future; to lead a team of talented and experienced researchers and staff; to engage committed advisory councils; to represent the Center to the public and policymakers; to advocate to lawmakers for federal funding; and to oversee its academic and training programs. In partnership with the MPDS Faculty Director and Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC), the Executive Director also provides administrative leadership for the MPDS program, overseeing MPDS staff alongside the Center's research staff, and ensuring the program's admissions, academic operations, budget, and student services run smoothly.

The Executive Director has overall strategic and operational responsibilities for research programs, research space, staff, fundraising, and the mission. They must be able to work effectively within and create synergies with all subcenters and academic programs. The Executive Director must have the capacity to collaborate and engage with the broad spectrum of the Center's partners, faculty affiliates, and the expertise and communication skills to serve as an effective representative of the organization, as well as providing leadership, institutional memory, and consultation.

The Executive Director will assist in writing grant proposals and research dissemination and outreach efforts. The Executive Director reports to the CCPR and MPDS Faculty Directors and works collaboratively with other research staff and faculty researchers. Applicants must have a Master's degree or equivalent.

Responsibilities

• Executive strategic and operational responsibilities for all research activities of the Center;
• Primary responsibility for the administration, management, and coordination of large research programs with broad and substantial complexity, in compliance with University and funder policies;
• Evaluate and manage annual faculty seed grant program, faculty course release program, research fellowship program, and weekly seminar series servicing faculty and graduate students from an array of academic disciplines across professional schools, colleges within campus and other public agencies outside the University;
• Develop, implement, and manage new academic and research initiatives in population research, working with multiple campus units;
• Evaluate research training programs and develop and implement new components; Responsible for largescale data collection and management;
• Independently manage large-scale research grant proposal writing and submission coordination; assist in providing annual progress reports to various stakeholders, including UCLA and funding agencies, and be responsible for research budget planning;
• Work with the Associate Vice Chancellor from the UCLA Capital Program to oversee all phases of research space design and renovation to fulfill all research sub-units' needs and harvest synergy among research centers and partners;
• Research and explore federal and private foundation funding opportunities for faculty affiliates and facilitate disciplinary research collaboration;
• Develop relationships with funding agencies and work with them to identify research needs and foster research collaboration among faculty researchers to expand the Center's research projects portfolio;
• Assist faculty PIs and the personnel manager in hiring staff of CCPR; supervise CCPR graduate student researchers and staff to manage the data and produce research reports in conjunction with the faculty PIs;
• Provide consultation and counsel on the Center's direction and research agenda to Faculty Directors;
• Develop strategies and carry out short- and long-term Center goals;
• Responsibility for fundraising and developing other resources necessary to support the Center, including budget planning and projections and financial stewardship of Center resources;
• Partner with the MPDS Faculty Director on curriculum administration, course scheduling, instructor and TA appointments, and program marketing and outreach efforts;
• Provide administrative oversight and management for the MPDS, including academic operations, admissions coordination, curriculum administration, and compliance with University policies governing self-supporting graduate professional degree programs;
• Directly supervise, hire, train, and evaluate MPDS program staff in addition to CCPR's research staff, ensuring coordinated workload management and performance evaluation across both research and MPDS teams;
• Oversee MPDS budget planning and financial managementincluding admissions, tuition revenue,staffing costs, and operating expenses and prepare related reports for the FAC, CCPR Director, and the Academic Planning and Budget (APB) Office;
• Serve as administrative liaison to the MPDS FAC and the MPDS Industry Advisory Board, coordinating meetings, communications, and follow-up on program recommendations;
• Oversee MPDS student affairs functions administered by MPDS staffincluding admissions, orientation,academic advising, and career/placement servicesensuring service quality and adherence to degree requirements and University policy;
• Ensure effective coordination and resource-sharing between CCPR's core research operations and the MPDS program, including shared office and classroom space, IT infrastructure, and administrative systems.

The successful candidate must have a Master's degree or equivalent degree, ideally in a field in social sciences.

Budgetary planning and management skills.