Grants Manager

Columbia University Biomedical Engineering; New York (NY); On-site; USD 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Columbia University Biomedical Engineering seeks a grants administrator to manage both pre-award and post-award activities, ensuring compliant, timely submissions and accurate budget development. You will work closely with PIs and central offices to optimize funding and reporting across NIH, NSF, DOD, and foundation sponsors.

The role requires hands-on NIH proposals, strong budgeting skills, and a solid grasp of university policies.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; preferably in a technical, scientific, or financial field.
• 3–5 years grants pre-award experience.
• 3 years grants post-award or financial analysis/reporting experience.
• Hands-on NIH grants proposal submission experience.
• Strong knowledge of NIH and Columbia policies and budgeting controls.

Responsibilities

• Pro-actively manages pre-award process and assist with proposal budgets andJust-in-Time info.
• Oversees post-award activities including budgets, expenses, variances, and reporting.
• Reviews notices of award, terms, and conditions; monitors compliance and financial health.
• Manages subcontracts and subcontractor financial monitoring; coordinates with PIs and central offices.
• Develops and maintains post-award dashboards and quarterly attestations; supports audit activities.

Skills

Grant administration

NIH/NSF/DOD grants

Budgeting & financial analysis

Regulatory compliance

Project management

Education

Bachelor's degree in technical/financial field

Master's degree preferred

Tools

InfoEd

ASSIST

Grants.gov

Fastlane

Job description

Reporting to the Associate Director of Research Finance and Operations, the incumbent is responsible for all aspects of pre-award and post-award grant administration. In close cooperation with faculty, manages preparation of grant proposals, conducting the full range of activities required to prepare, submit and manage grant proposals to federal and state government, foundations and corporate sponsors; determining format and requirements of proposals for content and ensuring compliance with the federal, University and sponsor policies and requirements. Provide a dedicated professional level sponsored funds management with specific responsibility for pre-award and post-award functions. This role functions at an intermediate level, with responsibility for independent management of simple to complex grants/contracts, including those from NIH, NSF, DOD, foundations, industry, and other sponsors. Ensure compliance in all areas related to grant and contract management, including federal, University and sponsor policies and requirements, internal protocols and operating procedures, conflicts of interest.

Responsibilities

Pre-award (40%):

Pro-actively manages the pre-award process for the department. Provide planning, instruction, preparation assistance and support related to grant application procedures. Develop and review budgets and related justification for appropriateness and completeness of content. Ensures that all applicable direct and indirect costs have been applied. Provide groundwork for subcontract negotiations as needed. Maintains up-to-date list of planned grant submissions. Works with Principal Investigators to prepare complete grant proposal packages by established deadlines. Assists Pis in all aspects of pre-award grants management to ensure timeliness, accuracy, and compliance. Assembles and reviews grant proposals, contract proposals, outgoing sub-awards and other related documents. Ensures completeness and compliance with federal, University and sponsor policies and requirements. Coordinates proposal budget preparation, review of proposal against sponsor and University requirements, obtaining departmental approvals, submission to SPA and submission to sponsoring agencies, often within tight timeframes. Prepares Just-in-Time and other pre-award information as needed. Serves as departmental point of contact and knowledge resource on grant proposal matters. Prepares, updates proposal guidelines, forms and checklists to facilitate pre-award process. Provides Pis with updates on government and University grant policies and procedures.

Post-award (40%):

Pro-actively manages all post-award aspects of the departmental external and internal grants portfolio, working closely with the department finance and payroll personnel, lab personnel, Sponsored Projects Finance. Conduct complex award management activities and provide oversight to other employees, including monitoring and managing accounts, audits, evaluations and reporting. Reviews Notices of Award, award terms and conditions, variances between the proposals and awards. Sets up awards, project budgets and fiscal year budgets, personnel effort allocation. Regularly monitors expenses, obligated balances, variance between actual expenses and budgets, grant expense eligibility, A/P and purchasing transactions. Reviews effort/ payroll allocations on grants against the budgets; coordinates effort, payroll allocation updates as needed. Develops and monitors comprehensive post-award reports and a dashboard of grant portfolios for departmental Pls. Prepares quarterly grants attestations, performs grant financial analysis to identify and forecast trends in spending and potential shortfalls or overdrafts, recommending strategies to effectively manage spending patterns and mitigate business risk. Reviews and resolves all open commitments and overdrafts, re-budgeting when necessary, completing project close outs, and performing general financial reconciliations. Supports annual effort reporting process. Liaises with central offices, collaborates with other CU faculty and departments, works closely to ensure all financial activities on projects are within the University, Government and sponsor policies and procedures. Maintains all pertinent records, files and documents. Assists Pis with annual effort certification. Provides grant audit support as needed. Ensure that post-award commitments and responsibilities are completed, projects reviewed and reconciled for closeouts, cost transfers processed as needed for grant close-outs.

Subcontracts (5%):

Initiates and oversees the process of preparing and processing sub-contracts, works with PI's to ensure sub-recipient financial monitoring. Works with Investigators, Administrators and Columbia University central administrative offices to prepare and process sub-contracts. Responsible for receipt of subcontract award documents, closeout documents, invoicing and final account closeout.

Reporting (10%):

Develops financial, personnel and other reports to facilitate all pre- and post-award activities. Assists Pis with preparing and submitting progress reports, including developing projected budget for next budget periods, initiate reports in ERA Commons, ensures submission of the Conflict of Interest and other research compliance, review all finalized report documents. Responsible for financial planning, monitoring and preparation of reports regarding the department research and grant activity and effort reporting. Maintains up-to-date standard information packages for the department PI's such as Other Support, Biosketches, Facilities and Resources; lab space / research infrastructure usage. Conduct complex award management activities and provide oversight to other employees, including monitoring and managing accounts, audits, evaluations and reporting.

Perform other duties, as assigned (5%)

Minimum Qualifications

Education. Bachelor's degree required; preferably in a technical, scientific, or financial field.

Experience. Must have at least three years to five years of grants pre-award experience. Must have at least three years of grants post-award or financial analysis / reporting experience. The pre-award experience must include hands-on grant proposal submission experience with NIH grants. The ideal candidate will possess firm understanding of NIH and Columbia Sponsored Projects and financial policies. Must have an advanced level experience developing complex spreadsheets.

Knowledge of accounting and budgeting policies and practices required. Ability to make independent judgments and to act on decisions on a daily basis. Ability to work with flexibility on several tasks simultaneously and to meet various concurrent deadlines. Knowledge of external Federal policies (such as Uniform Guidance), guidelines/procedures for grants and contracts, including NIH, NSF, DOD and other government and private funding mechanisms, proposal submission platforms such as InfoEd, ASSIST, Fastlane, Grants.gov.

Skills. Must be detail oriented with excellent quantitative, analytical, organizational, interpersonal, oral and written communication and computer skills. Ability to work independently in a dynamic environment with changing priorities and multiple responsibilities required. Proven ability to multi-task and meet multiple deadlines is required. Ability to work effectively with faculty, staff, other departments while providing strong attention to detail. Ability to work discretely with confidential information. Must be customer service - focused, pro-active and a self-starter; capable of working with a diverse constituency, being flexible and maintain positive attitude while meeting strict deadlines.

Preferred Qualifications

Thorough knowledge and understanding of Columbia University accounting, financial reporting system and related fiscal policies preferred.

Experience in a higher education institution with engineering or medical research background.

Master's degree preferred. Experience with human subjects research / IRB protocols preferred

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.