Principal State Evaluation Manager (Program Director I/II)

This position is being posted as a blended role and will be filled as a Program Director 1 or Program Director 2 depending on the candidate's qualifications and experience.

The Center for Health Systems Effectiveness (CHSE) at OHSU is a health policy research center focused on actionable, cross-disciplinary, collaborative research.

The Principal State Evaluation Manager (PSEM) to lead CHSE’s large, multi-year state policy research and evaluation contracts. This is a highly visible leadership role for someone with deep expertise in Medicaid policy and evaluation and a track record of strategic stakeholder engagement. This is not a faculty-track position. 

The PSEM is accountable for the successful execution of CHSE’s evaluation of Washington State’s Medicaid Transformation Project (MTP), the state’s Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration waiver. The role spans three connected areas: research oversight and delivery, stakeholder relations, and center leadership.

Research oversight and delivery. The PSEM has final decision-making authority over MTP project management and coordinates faculty and quantitative and qualitative research teams across many evaluation components. This includes providing study teams with the direction and information they need, developing and maintaining timelines, and ensuring appropriate staffing in line with the budget and work needs. The PSEM is responsible for bringing all work together into cohesive final products and often writes reports, manuscripts, and presentations directly.

Stakeholder relations. Strong partnerships are essential both to delivering impactful evaluations and to winning future contracts. The PSEM builds and maintains collaborative relationships with state legislative offices and agency leaders at the program, division, and department levels. Throughout the contract lifecycle, the PSEM bridges differences in how researchers and state partners approach methods, priorities, and timelines.

Center leadership. The PSEM works with a high degree of autonomy and serves on CHSE’s Strategic Research Governing Team, which sets the Center’s vision, develops annual objectives and key results (OKRs), guides center-wide resource planning, and shares CHSE’s findings with policy audiences to inform policy change. The PSEM will serve as a staff mentor and may directly supervise staff. The PSEM works with and is supported by CHSE faculty Principal Investigators, quantitative and qualitative analysts, and a regulatory specialist.

CHSE is committed to a welcoming, inclusive work environment that promotes diversity. We put that into practice through distributed leadership, where staff at every level help shape decisions, and a culture of continuous growth built on feedback in all directions.

Classification and salary are both commensurate with experience, education, and internal equity.

Program Director 1 salary range is $105,414 - $181,771.

Program Director 2 salary range is $121,201- $209,040. 

• Research oversight: Oversee research methodology, implementation, and completion of state policy evaluation designs, including ongoing consultation, direction, mentorship to qualitative analysts, and collaboration with quantitative colleagues. Understand the full state context. Track analyses across teams and project life cycles to identify and delegate coverage of analysis gaps. Holds final decision-making authority.  
• Project and contract management: Responsible for all aspects of complex research projects, including coordination of qualitative and quantitative teams. Work to establish timelines for project tasks to deliver final products (e.g., reports, briefs, and manuscripts for peer review). Monitor timelines, review output, and work with other staff as needed to revise work or make corrections to deliver results on time and meet high-quality standards. Oversee research compliance (e.g., receipt of IRB approval, execution of data use agreements, and subsequent revisions or amendments), data collection and data management, and data analysis.  
• Final product delivery: Responsible for high-quality final written reports, manuscripts, and presentations through writing, editing, synthesizing, and coordination across team members. Must meet expectations for review by federal and state agencies.  
• External stakeholder relations management: Serve as the primary contact for state agency sponsors and other key stakeholders, building, fostering, and maintaining positive and collaborative relationships and bringing research literacy to decision-making interactions.  
• Business development: Leverage strong relationships with Washington State to generate and secure additional work with the state. Contribute to research project proposals, including responses to requests for proposals (RFPs) from government agencies and private foundations. Coordinate work on proposals among PIs, faculty, research analysts, and other staff. Prepare project staffing plans and budgets that support sufficient project staffing, high-quality deliverables, and CHSE budget sustainability.    
• Other duties as assigned.  

PD1: Bachelor’s degree in a related field and seven (7) years of progressively responsible program leadership, management, or administrative experience; OR equivalent combination of education, training, and experience.

PD2: Bachelor’s degree in a related field and eight (8) years of progressively responsible leadership, management, or administrative experience; OR equivalent combination of education, training, and experience.

• Demonstrated accountability for designing and leading complex, mixed-methods program evaluation, particularly in the field of health policy and across a project life cycle, including development of a scope of work/analysis plan, project kick-off, analysis, QA, interpretation of results, synthesis, report production, and presentation to clients and key stakeholders

• Leading and successfully executing a portfolio of high-profile, large-scale, multi-year, multi-million-dollar projects

• Experience scoping, budgeting, and negotiating large public-policy evaluation contracts. Knowledge of health disparities and the factors that cause them.  

• Expert in independently writing formal reports and manuscripts

• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail; flexibility to lead and manage multiple priorities, sometimes simultaneously, under deadline

• Proven ability to anticipate analytical issues before they occur, exercise sound judgment in problem-solving, and maintain thorough documentation of decision-making

• Exemplary communication skills and ability to effectively present research findings to state policymakers and program administrators

• Demonstrated understanding of, and commitment to, research practices that advance healthcare equity   

• Ability to perform the job duties with or without accommodation.

• PhD with major courses in quantitative evaluation methods and health policy; mixed-methods evaluation training and experience

• Familiarity with advanced statistical/econometric approaches (e.g., difference-in-differences, interrupted time series, propensity scores)

• Experience demonstrating:

  • Qualitative/mixed methods research experience

  • Extensive experience managing and analyzing healthcare claims and other administrative datasets

  • Experience working with diverse populations and in diverse environments

• Deep knowledge of the Medicaid program (state/federal roles, 1115 waivers, funding and financing)

• Deep understanding of research regulatory processes, e.g., IRB and DUAs

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