Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Rice University is a prestigious institution committed to excellence in education and research. The Research Administrator II plays a crucial role in managing the administrative and financial components of sponsored projects, ensuring compliance, and supporting principal investigators throughout the award lifecycle.
Responsibilities
- Independently plans, manages, and oversees the administrative and financial aspects of assigned sponsored projects, including large-scale and complex awards
- Translates award requirements into project plans, timelines, financial forecasts, deliverables, and administrative processes; monitors progress and identifies risks
- Develops and finalizes proposal budgets and budget justifications with principal investigators and prepares cost-sharing documentation when applicable
- Reviews proposal and award requirements, verifies financial and administrative information, and monitors compliance with sponsor, university, and applicable regulatory requirements
- Coordinates collection and review of subaward statements of work, budgets, budget justifications, and related documentation and confirms principal investigator approval
- Creates and verifies complete and accurate proposal records in Cayuse and coordinates submissions with the Office of Sponsored Research
- Coordinates award and account setup; reviews and tracks expenditures and commitments; monitors budgets and forecasts; and provides information for financial and progress reports
- Works with faculty and administrative partners to ensure charges are appropriate, allowable, allocable, and recorded correctly and supports timely corrective action
- Coordinates post-award actions including rebudgeting, prior approvals, no-cost extensions, progress-reporting support, subaward administration, and account closeout
- Serves as liaison among investigators, central research offices, administrators, subrecipients, and other stakeholders; maintains complete records and performs other duties as assigned
Skills
- Bachelor's degree
- Two or more (2+) years of related experience in research administration, sponsored-project administration, grants management, financial administration, or project management
- Proficiency with word-processing, spreadsheet, email, database, and related business software
- Knowledge of sponsored-project budgeting, financial forecasting, proposal administration, compliance, and recordkeeping
- Ability to analyze the financial health of sponsored projects, identify variances and risks, and support responsible financial management
- Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills, with the initiative to identify issues and recommend solutions
- Strong customer-service and relationship-management skills
- Ability to collaborate effectively with principal investigators, research administrators, central offices, and other internal and external stakeholders
- Strong verbal and written communication skills
- Ability to apply project-management practices—including planning, prioritization, risk identification, stakeholder coordination, and follow-through—to complex sponsored projects
- Ability to work independently and contribute effectively within a team while managing multiple priorities and deadlines
- Experience administering a diverse portfolio of federal, state, foundation, industry, or other sponsored awards
- Experience managing large-scale, center, cooperative agreement, consortium, ARPA-H, or similarly complex awards
- Experience with Cayuse, Oracle or a comparable enterprise financial system, sponsor electronic research administration systems, and advanced spreadsheet analysis
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