Director of Indigenous Research

Job Summary

The Director for Indigenous Research is responsible for leading and sustaining planning, implementation, and evaluation of a wide range of multidisciplinary indigenous research projects and strategic initiatives across KAI service delivery to benefit American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities. Counsels in advancing organizational capacity in the Indigenous Evaluation Framework (IEF)[1], and data collection, analysis and evaluation informed through Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Tribal Oral Tradition. Advises applied research activities focused on community-based initiatives, national evaluations, social marketing, and other evaluation components of client contracts. The work in this position is predominantly intellectual and varied involving independent research and evaluation across multiple contracts in education, health, behavioral health, social work, human services, and client identified focus areas. Effective collaborative teamwork is an essential skill in assisting with weaving together programmatic and evaluative efforts. Demonstrated experience with managing federal grants, contracts or initiatives is required.

Essential Job Functions

• Draw from Indigenous and Western evaluation frameworks to develop and implement culturally responsive and adaptive evaluation approaches. Designs and plans evaluation models using participatory processes including empowerment evaluation.
• Facilitates integration of indigenous research principles across all aspects of KAI service lines and supports KAI Leadership in advancing indigenous research capacity including developing and delivering ongoing professional development opportunities.
• Review and recommend for inclusion research components of grants for alignment with client guidelines/expectations and with an eye to best practices and indigenous methods in research and evaluation.
• From and Indigenous Evaluation Framework, conducts program evaluation and applied research of various community-based initiatives and grant-funded projects which are primarily AIAN community focused.
• Leads community engagement, participatory action research, and/or other strategies to implement studies in partnership with AIAN communities.
• Apply rigorous analytic thinking in the collection and interpretation of quantitative and qualitative data including grounded theory. Uses mixed methods and adaptive approaches to gather information and write reports for programmatic, evaluation, and social marketing purposes.
• Lead the development of literature reviews, reports, technical memos, TA tools, issue briefs, presentations, journal manuscripts and through multi-media formats.
• Experience with federal contracts or subcontracts, and providing high quality deliverables and services, within budget and timelines, while coaching an effective team.
• Able to negotiate Federal OMB Clearance, Data Use Agreements, and Institutional Review Board processes and documentation.

Secondary Functions

Secondary job functions include business development activities and continuously opportunities as assigned, including presentations to potential clients on KAI’s capacities around indigenous research and evaluation, meetings with project officers and other officials of funding agencies, and participation in various meetings with strategic partners. Additionally secondary functions include:

• Maintain a strong understanding of the literature, legislation, regulatory, and policy requirements and tribal practice of indigenous research frameworks including tribal data sovereignty principles.
• Provide individualized technical assistance and facilitate KAI colleague learning opportunities in the areas of needs assessment, program evaluation, performance measurement, data collection and reporting, data management, dissemination, and continuous quality improvement from an Indigenous Evaluation Framework.
• Monitor activity relating to AIAN research which may include capacity building capacity of federal grant readers to understand indigenous and tribal logic models, tribal IRB development and data collection and evaluation practices with AIAN communities.
• Serve as a liaison indigenous evaluation subject matter expert (SME) to assigned organizations and clients serving Indigenous communities including Tribes, Tribal organizations, and urban AIAN organizations.

Specific Job Skills

• Ability to conduct work that is predominately intellectual in character and requires the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment.
• Reflexively analyze and make recommendations for continuous organizational capacity improvement with respect to indigenous evaluation research practice.
• Outstanding relational, teamwork, and cultural competency with colleagues, community members, federal representatives, contractors, and clients.
• Excellent qualitative research including grounded theory and indigenous evaluation and practice, and analysis skills as well as familiarity with quantitative research analysis.
• Excellent analytical and writing skills that include attention to detail as well as a grasp of large conceptual frameworks.
• Ability to facilitate and direct onsite/offsite evaluation work using participatory evaluation models such as empowerment evaluation.
• Ability to incorporate adult learning methods when training and providing technical assistance to community.
• Effectively analyze and report, written and verbally, findings from research and evaluation

Education and Experience

Required:

• A Ph.D. in evaluation, psychology, health, social work, social services, or related field.
• Demonstrated education/ experience conducting indigenous research and evaluation including leading, conducting, and managing research and/or evaluation projects.
• Specific experience conducting research with mixed method qualitative and quantitative research designs and methodologies with AIAN communities.
• At least 10 years demonstrated production of complex and high-quality work including federal grant writing, administration, tracking deliverables and report writing.
• Experience with overall program evaluation and applied research of various community-based initiatives including Data Use Agreements and conducting research in an AIAN setting with IRB approval and/or tribal consent.

Preferred

• At least 5 years experience of personnel supervision in a AIAN tribal organizational setting including creating and administering budgets.
• Demonstrated evidence of successful and creative project design, development, and management.
• Demonstrated history of professionalism, teamwork, multi-cultural awareness and working with diverse populations.

Demands/Complexity

The Director of Indigenous Research shall be responsible for producing high-quality, timely contract deliverables within budget. This individual will be assigned tasks that may at times be complex in

nature with overlapping deliverables and deadlines. The Director of Indigenous Research exercises independent judgment in matters of specialization within the discipline of social science. Work products will be subject to review by project managers respective of contract once the Director of Indigenous Research has completed them.

Supervisory Responsibility

The Director of Indigenous Research reports to the KAI Executive Vice President but regularly will serve as the Point of Contact to coordinate assignments and deliverables performed by Program Evaluators as well as support staff and consultants.

Contact with Others

The Director of Indigenous Research will communicate face-to-face, by email, and by telephone with the Executive Vice President as well as liaison with the Vice President for Research, Evaluation and Planning. The Director of Indigenous Research also will communicate face-to-face, by email, and telephone with respective project managers, other members of the team, and other KAI staff and subcontractors as required. Interactions will include simple exchanges of information, coordination of activities, receipt of assignments and other instruction, and regular invitations to independent problem solving.

Job Conditions

The Director of Indigenous Research will work out of KAI’s Spokane, Seattle, D.C., or a remote office. The position will include travel, evening meetings, extended hours, and interruptions from time-to-time. Close computer work for extended periods of time will be required.

Disclaimer

This job description is not to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required of this position. All KAI employees may be required to perform duties outside of their normal responsibilities from time to time, as needed, to meet the ongoing needs of the organization.

Benefits Overview

• 80% company paid medical insurance premiums; portion of family paid
• 50% company paid dental insurance premiums; portion of family paid
• Vision insurance
• $50K company paid life insurance
• Partial internet reimbursement
• 15 days of annual leave in first year
• 100% Remote work
• Matching 401K with immediate vesting
• EAP