Vice President of Research – Network Innovation

Role Overview

• Lead a research, data, and innovation agenda aligned with ATD priorities
• Guide organizational learning across coaching, cohorts, and grant-funded initiatives
• Ensure insights from initiatives inform ATD’s strategy and core work
• Represent ATD through board service, partnerships, and national engagement
• Collaborate with partners to strengthen alignment across the field
• Lead and support a research and data team responsible for analysis and application
• Build a team culture focused on clarity, collaboration, and execution
• Develop staff to serve as both analysts and partners to program and coaching teams
• Set priorities and manage workflow to ensure timely, high-quality outputs
• Lead applied research aligned to ATD’s work with colleges, cohorts, and grant-funded initiatives
• Synthesize learning across coaching, the Institutional Capacity Assessment Tool (ICAT), Community Vibrancy work, and national initiatives
• Identify patterns in institutional capacity building, student outcomes, and community impact
• Use ATD’s Community Vibrancy Framework to connect practice, outcomes, and impact
• Ensure learning from grant-funded initiatives is integrated into ATD’s core services and long-term strategy
• Translate findings into guidance that informs program design, coaching, and organizational decision making
• Lead development and refinement of ATD tools, including ICAT, Community Vibrancy workbooks, diagnostics, and planning resources
• Oversee the continuous development and improvement of Community Vibrancy workbooks and related network tools
• Translate research into practical tools and resources for colleges and coaches
• Ensure learning from initiatives is reflected in tools, coaching approaches, and supports
• Partner with coaching and program teams to apply research and tools in practice
• Set direction for data use across the organization
• Define and advance key measures tied to student success, institutional capacity, and Community Vibrancy
• Oversee development and refinement of Community Vibrancy metrics for the network and the organization
• Improve access to data for internal teams
• Align data collection across core work and grant-funded initiatives
• Use national and network data sources to inform analysis and decision making
• Design data collection approaches aligned to ATD engagements
• Improve diagnostic and assessment processes
• Lead evaluation work tied to external funding
• Ensure data collection across initiatives supports broader organizational learning
• Oversee ICAT data collection and ongoing refinement
• Analyze national and network data to identify trends and outcomes
• Inform cohort selection and strategic planning
• Connect external data to internal learning
• Support reporting and recognition efforts
• Partner with leadership to align research and data with organizational priorities
• Work across program and internal teams to support implementation
• Coordinate with IT on data systems and governance
• Support Development on evaluation and outcomes for funded work

Requirements

• Ph.D. degree in a relevant field
• Significant experience leading research, data, or analytics work
• Experience designing and running applied research or evaluation
• Ability to translate research into practical tools, guidance, or decisions
• Experience in higher education or a related field