Job Information
Boston College Research Associate in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Boston College Introduction
Founded in 1863, Boston College is a Jesuit, Catholic university located six miles from downtown Boston with an enrollment of 9,484 full-time undergraduates and 5,250 graduate and professional students. Ranked 35 among national universities, Boston College has 888 full-time and 1,281 FTE faculty, 2,711 non-faculty employees, an operating budget of $1.4 billion, and an endowment in excess of $3.5 billion.
Job Description
Research Associate/Project Coordinator
This position is for a multi-year, mixed-methods evaluation of housing and community development effects on child and adult health and wellbeing.
Professors Rebekah Levine Coley and Samantha Teixeira of Boston College are recruiting a full-time Project Coordinator to work on the 5-year Housing Opportunity and Mobility Experiment (HOME) project. Preferred start date of June 1, 2025.
With funding from the National Institutes of Health, this project evaluates how the redevelopment of a concentrated poverty public housing development into a mixed-income community with quality housing, enhanced services, and economic integration affects childrenâs educational success and childrenâs and adultsâ mental, behavioral, and physical health. Using an innovative multi-method, quasi-experimental design, we are collecting longitudinal child and parent surveys, biological data, direct environmental assessments, in depth qualitative interviews and observations, and local and national administrative data following 600 households (including children, youth, adults, and older adults) over 5 years. The research team brings together a multidisciplinary and highly effective group of scholars with specialization in economic and social inequalities in child and parent wellbeing (Rebekah Levine Coley, Developmental Psychology), community engaged research and neighborhood effects (Samantha Teixeira, Social Work), biological stress measures (Amanda Tarullo, Child Clinical Psychology), environmental assessments of housing quality (Gary Adamkiewicz, Public Health and Engineering), and gerontology (Tina Matz, Social Work). The Project Coordinator will be directly supervised by Principal Investigators Coley and Teixeira at Boston College. Work will take place at Boston College and at a community site in South Boston.
The Project Coordinator will assist with all aspects of the project, including overseeing and engaging in participant recruitment, data collection, and data management; providing support to field staff and investigators; liaising with partner organizations; disseminating results; and supporting project reporting requirements. This is an excellent position for a fluent Spanish-speaking candidate with research and community engagement experience (preferably with racially/ethnically diverse and economically marginalized populations) who wishes to contribute to multi-methods research and multi-disciplinary teamwork. The position will provide exceptional preparation for further graduate training.
Key Responsibilities
Coordinate participant recruitment, field staff assignments, and organization of data collection efforts.
Work closely with the study team to ensure communication between community participants and research staff.
Engage in survey, environmental, and qualitative interviewing data collection efforts.
Develop and use data management systems to track outreach, recruitment, data collection, and distribution of research incentives (using REDCap and Excel).
Support data cleaning, coding, and analysis (using Stata and NVivo software). Translate and transcribe study materials.
Participate in weekly interdisciplinary project meetings, weekly supervision meetings with field staff and data collectors, and occasional community activities and advisory board meetings.
Support development of research products, including journal articles, conference presentations, policy briefs, and grant proposals. Create accessible materials to translate research findings to community audiences.
Assist with grant administration and management, including human subjects and project reporting compliance.
Competitive salary commensurate with relevant experience.
Requirements
Bachelorâs or Masterâs degree in psychology, social work, public health, sociology, or related field
Minimum of 1 year of research experience
Demonstrated interest/experience in community settings, preferably with diverse populations and/or in low resource settings; comfort engaging in home visits in underserved public housing community context.
Exceptional organization and communication skills, ability to work independently and proactively, maturity and strong commitment to teamwork
Experience with data collection (quantitative/qualitative), data coding and management, and data collection/statistical software (STATA, RedCAP, NVivo, Excel) preferred; willingness to learn essential
Desire to build skills and expertise in policy-focused and community-based research and research translation
Capacity to travel to and work in South Boston public housing setting, including home visits
Successful completion of Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) check.
Fluency in Spanish required
Closing Statement
Boston College offers a broad and competitive range of benefits depending on your job classification eligibility:
Tuition remission for Employees
Tuition remission for Spouses and Children who meet eligibility requirements
Generous Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
Low-Cost Life Insurance
Eligibility for both University-Funded 401k and Employer-Sponsored 403b Retirement Plans
Paid Holidays Annually
Generous Sick and Vacation Pay
Additional benefits can be found on https://www.bc.edu/employeehandbook
Boston College conducts pre-employment background checks as part of the hiring process.