Assistant Director of Research Administration - Office of Research

Job No: 538488

Work Type: Full Time

Location: Main Campus (Gainesville, FL)

Categories: Grant or Research Administration, Health Care Administration/Support

Department:  - MD-OFFICE OF RESEARCH

The College of Medicine's Office of Research is seeking an experienced and strategic leader to serve as Assistant Director of Research Administration. Reporting to the Associate Director of Research Data Management & Analytics, this role provides college-wide leadership and operational oversight for the research administration enterprise.

The Assistant Director of Research Administration leads the Excellence in Research Management unit, supervising Research Administration Managers and their teams who deliver comprehensive pre‑award and post‑award support across all College of Medicine departments. This position plays a key role in advancing the college's research mission by ensuring compliance with federal, state, and university regulations while driving continuous improvement in research administration operations.

The ideal candidate will bring a strong background in research administration, a collaborative leadership style, and a passion for building standardized processes, training programs, and best practices that enhance efficiency, effectiveness, and service delivery across a complex academic research environment.

• Direct the Excellence in Research Management unit, supervising a group of more than 5 FTE Research Administration Managers across pre‑award and post‑award functions and guiding their teams of research administrators.
• Provide strategic direction for the management of all project budgets in accordance with agency, sponsored research, and College of Medicine guidelines for extramural funding applications.
• Review state contracts for accuracy of dates and dollar amounts.
• Participate in budgetary meetings and trainings with COM departments, providing updates on grant projects and discussing strategic efficiencies.
• Review program announcements and other guidelines and communicate relevant requirements to the grants team and other applicable administrative staff.
• Manage the preparation of forms for electronic submission in both internal and UF systems and ensure the proposal information log is maintained by grant staff.
• Direct the process of entering proposals into UFIRST along with all required documentation, including conflict of interest forms and internal budgets.
• Communicate and serve as a liaison to DSP and core offices on behalf of the College of Medicine.
• Ensure compliance in research administration by reviewing monthly departmental audit reports and conducting regularly scheduled meetings and training sessions.

• Facilitate the ongoing evaluation and maintenance of educational content for departmental administrative staff and PIs.
• Collaborate with UF campus experts, research leaders, and COM leadership to identify unmet needs and create shared components of the Research Administrator Onboarding plan.
• Develop, schedule, and deliver in‑person, virtual, and prerecorded regular formal training to the COM research community on new research administration topics including pre‑award and post‑award management, compliance, and expenditure transactions.
• Consistently review participant training evaluations and learning outcomes to ensure training is useful and effective.
• Create and update written training materials, visual aids, manuals, guides, forms, videos, and presentations for research administration topics.
• Ensure all training materials and related documents are prepared in a user‑friendly, understandable, clear, concise, accessible, and visually appealing format, and are well‑written.

• Lead the receipt and/or development of all grant and contract proposals in the college.
• Review and interpret agency guidelines prior to proposal preparation, including but not limited to Federal funding agencies, Industries, Private Foundations, and University internal opportunities.
• Provide oversight to compliance regulations around documents such as other support, biosketches, and…