Evaluation and Research Specialist, Act to End NTDs | East

RTI International (RTI) is both a global research institute and a leading international development organization. We combine these powerful capabilities with those of our partners to co-create smart, shared solutions for a more prosperous, equitable, and resilient world. Based in North Carolina, USA, RTI is one of the top implementing partners of projects funded through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). A commitment to making meaningful change energizes our 6,000 staff who deliver results across eight international development sectors and in more than 80 countries.

The Global Health Division (GHD), within the International Development Group (IDG), works in Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs); Global Health Security and Public Health Preparedness; Health Systems Strengthening - including Health Governance, Health Finance, Human Resources for Health, Capacity Building, and Health Policy and Advocacy; and Integrated Care - including Reproductive, Maternal, and Child Health and Family Planning. We address a range of public health problems to reduce disparities, lower disease burdens, and build locally owned sustainable health programs.

The GHD is seeking an Evaluation & Research Specialist to provide qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods technical leadership for evaluation and implementation research activities for for USAID's Act to End NTDs | East (Act | East) Program (https://www.acteast.org), a global flagship initiative that has supported 13 countries working to control and eliminate neglected tropical diseases.This role will have a strong focus on supporting measurement and visualization of progress toward health systems strengthening and sustainability and disease elimination made by countries supported by Act | East. Additionally, this position will lead efforts to document and disseminate progress and lessons learned through external products and communications.

This position will report to the Director of MERLA for Act | East and will be based in the US (Washington, DC; Research Triangle Park, NC or remote). The position may be expected to travel up to 20% of the time. Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States without sponsorship.

• Collaborate across the Act | East team to identify opportunities to conduct evaluation/ implementation research activities to gather evidence needed to support programmatic decision-making and action, often as part of learning questions in Act | East's learning agenda.

• Lead and support successful design, protocol development, implementation, and analysis of Act | East evaluation/ implementation research studies and activities, ensuring that these complement routine monitoring and contribute to learning at program and global levels. This includes qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods evaluation/ implementation research activities.

• Support measurement and visualization of progress toward health systems strengthening and sustainability made by countries supported by Act | East.

• In collaboration with Act | East staff, analyze project data and generate results in easy-to-understand visual formats across the project's three result areas.

• Work with the Act | East team members to facilitate uptake of evaluation/implementation research findings and learnings for programmatic refinement as well as policy discussions.

• Work with Act | East staff to ensure that evaluation/implementation research results are captured in briefs, reports, conference abstracts, blogs, journal manuscripts and other documentation products. This includes providing guidance and support to Act | East staff as well as drafting materials, submitting to conferences and peer-reviewed journals, etc.

• Support capacity building of Act | East staff (including in-country program and consortium partner staff) to carry out evaluation/implementation research activities, analyze, and use data.

• Collaborate with strategic partners across RTI (and specifically its International Development Group) to identify areas for evaluation/implementation research support and engagement.

• Serve as the Act | East IRB liaison providing guidance on all IRB submissions and leading all those sent to the RTI IRB which includes managing submissions in the RTI system and coordinating with the IRB to finalize approvals.

• Other work as assigned.

Candidates will be expected to submit a writing sample for consideration.

Education and Experience:

• Master's degree in Public Health, Epidemiology, Health Sciences or related field and at least 6 years of specialized experience carrying out evaluations, implementation research, and/or operations research in global health (or Bachelor's degree and 8 years of similar experience).
• Demonstrated experience in technical, proposal, abstract, report, journal manuscript and alternative story form (e.g., blog posts, snapshots, recap summarization, social media posts) writing.
• Demonstrated experience supporting data collection, reporting and dissemination on health system, sustainability or directly related projects.
• Experience in working with diverse teams in various global settings to conduct qualitative and quantitative data analysis, visualization, use and reporting.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Proven ability and experience in qualitative and quantitative data collection, management, analysis, use, visualization, reporting and dissemination.
• Technical content expertise health systems strengthening, additional expertise in infectious diseases (including NTDs, malaria, HIV, TB) preferrable.
• Strong qualitative analysis skills with proficiency in at least one qualitative analysis software (ATLAS.ti, NVivo, etc.).
• Experience in at least one quantitative analysis software (SAS, STATA, R).
• Ability to translate complex data into easily understandable reports, abstracts and narratives.
• Ability to analyze M&E and other programmatic data and synthesize findings as learning for programmatic use.
• Excellent writing, editing, and presentation skills.
• Proven ability to work effectively in a team-oriented setting while also taking initiative to complete assigned tasks with high quality and within tight timelines.
• An understanding of development issues and potential challenges when operating in developing country contexts.
• Ability to navigate complex global, multi-cultural interactions diplomatically.
• Strong English oral and written communication skills (native speaker or professional-level fluency).

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The anticipated pay range for this role is listed below. Our pay ranges represent national averages and may vary by location as a geographic differential may be applied to some locations within the United States. RTI considers multiple factors when making an offer including, for example: established salary range, internal budget, business needs, and education and years of work experience possessed by the applicant. Further, salary is merely one element to our offer.

At RTI, we demonstrate our commitment to rewarding individual and team achievement through a total rewards package. This package includes (among other things) a competitive base salary, a generous paid time off policy, merit based annual increases, bonus opportunities and a robust recognition program. Other benefits include a competitive range of insurance plans (including health, dental, life, and short-term and long-term disability), access to a retirement savings program such as a 401(k) plan, paid parental leave for all parents, financial assistance with adoption expenses or infertility treatments, financial reimbursement for education and developmental opportunities, an employee assistance program, and numerous other offerings to support a healthy work-life balance.