Program Manager

Howard Hughes Medical Institute; United States; Hybrid; USD 104,000 - 129,000; Full time

Job summary

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) seeks a data-focused program specialist to support the Community College Pilot. The role centers on tracking student participation, outcomes, and transfer progress across sites, ensuring data quality, confidentiality, and actionable reporting.

You will collaborate with partner institutions to gather data, analyze trends, and share insights with internal teams and external audiences.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; graduate degree preferred.
• 3–5 years of professional experience in higher education, student success, institutional research, or program evaluation.
• Experience with transfer and community college contexts is valued.

Responsibilities

• Builds and runs the tracking systems for monitoring student participation, persistence, transfer, and graduation outcomes across Pilot sites; owns data quality, consistency and confidentiality.
• Coordinates data collection with institutional partners; reconciles inconsistencies and ensures reporting requirements are met.
• Turns data into usable information; analyzes data to identify trends and prepares summaries, dashboards, and reports.
• Supports evaluation framework development and dissemination of lessons learned.
• Leads student success work by collaborating with partner institutions on recruitment, engagement and retention.
• Serves as a community college resource contributing knowledge to program design and decision making.
• Acts as the point of contact for site issues and coordinates with the broader team to resolve them.

Skills

Data discipline

Community college fluency

Data storytelling

Organization under complexity

Audience communication

Mission alignment

Education

Bachelor's degree

Graduate degree preferred

Tools

Student information systems

Survey tools

Data visualization platforms

Job description

Primary Work Address: 4000 Jones Bridge Road, Chevy Chase, MD, 20815

Why This Role Matters

HHMI’s Community College Pilot supports promising science students at community colleges through transfer and bachelor’s degree completion in the life sciences. What makes the Pilot distinct is that support is built around individual students rather than routed only through institutional programs, so someone has to keep track of how individual students are actually doing, not just how a site reports it. This role carries that responsibility. Fluency with the data and genuine relationships with students and institutional staff are what keep a program with this many moving parts pointed in the same direction. When questions or issues come up across sites, this role is often the first point of contact, and how those moments are handled shapes how smoothly the rest of the team can do their work.

What You Will Actually Do

• Buildsandrunsthe trackingsystems. Develops andmaintainssystems for monitoring student participation, persistence, transfer, and graduation outcomes across Pilot sites. Owns data quality, consistency, and confidentiality.

• Coordinates data collection. Works with institutional partners to gather program data, reconciles inconsistencies, and ensures reporting requirements are met. Serves as the person who knows where the gaps are.

• Turns data into usable information. Analyzes quantitative and qualitative data to identify trends and challenges.Prepares summaries, dashboards, and reports for internal and external audiences.

• Supports evaluation. Assists with evaluation framework development and dissemination of lessons learned and effective practices.

• Leads student success work. Collaborates with partner institutions on student recruitment, engagement, and retention. Monitors participation in program offerings and flags students who may need additional support.

• Serves as a community college resource. Brings knowledge of community college student experiences, transfer pathways, and institutional practices to the team’s program design and decision-making.

• Acts as the point of contact for site issues. Serves as the first point of contact when questions or issues arise across Pilot sites, coordinating with the broader team to resolve them rather than solving every problem independently.

What We Are Looking For

• Brings data discipline. Builds systems that hold up over time, thinks about data structure before output, and catches quality problems before they compound.

• Offers community college fluency. Brings direct professional experience in or with community colleges and understands what transfer actually asks of students, not just what the paperwork says.

• Makes data useful, not just accurate. Does not stop at correct numbers, and frames findings in ways that help a program team understand what to do next.

• Stays organized under complexity. Tracks a wide set of institutional relationships and data streams simultaneously without losing threads.

• Communicates across audiences. Writes a technical data summary for an internal team and a clear student-facing email in the same morning.

• Is mission-connected. Cares specifically about science access and transfer equity, not just program management in the abstract.

• Education and experience. A bachelor’s degree is required; a graduate degree is preferred. A minimum of three to five years of professional experience in higher education, student success, institutional research, program evaluation, or a related field is required.

Nice To Have

• Background supporting transfer students or science student populations.

• Experience with student information systems, survey tools, or data visualization platforms.

• Experience with program assessment and longitudinal student tracking.

What This Role Is Not

• Not a pure data role. This role works closely with students and institutional partners, not just spreadsheets.

• Not a research or evaluation lead role. This role supports evaluation but does not design or own it independently.

• Not a supervisory role. This is an individual contributor position.

• Not a role for someone without community college experience. Direct professional experience working in or with community colleges is required, not preferred.

Practical Details

This position is based at HHMI headquarters and follows a hybrid work arrangement. Domestic travel is required for site visits, convenings, and conferences. This role reports to the Director of Undergraduate Science Pathways.

#LI-RK1

Physical Requirements

Remaining in a normal seated or standing position for extended periods of time; reaching and grasping by extending hand(s) or arm(s); dexterity to manipulate objects with fingers, for example using a keyboard; communication skills using the spoken word; ability to see and hear within normal parameters; ability to move about workspace. The position requires mobility, including the ability to move materials weighing up to several pounds (such as a laptop computer or tablet).

Please Note:

This job description sets forth the job’s principal duties, responsibilities, and requirements; it should not be construed as an exhaustive statement, however. Unless they begin with the word “may,” the Essential Duties and Responsibilities described above are “essential functions” of the job, as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Compensation and Benefits

Our employees are compensated from a total rewards perspective in many ways for their contributions to our mission, including competitive pay, exceptional health benefits, retirement plans, time off, and a range of recognition and wellness programs. Visit our Benefits at HHMI site to learn more.

Hiring Pay Range

$103,508.00 - $129,385.00

Pay Type:

Annual

The posted range reflects HHMI’s good faith estimate of the anticipated hiring salary range for this role at the time of posting. Actual hiring compensation is determined by a candidate’s qualifications, experience, and internal equity.

HHMI is an Equal Opportunity Employer

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