Assistant Director Position with Data Carpentry

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Data Carpentry seeks a full-time Associate Director to lead the organization’s community engagement and education activities, to cultivate a healthy supportive community and provide mentorship and training to current and future instructors. The Associate Director is one of the two key roles providing leadership to Data Carpentry’s core efforts and is expected to shape the organization’s operational functioning, influence training, and contribute to strategic planning.

Data Carpentry is a not-for-profit organization developing and teaching workshops on fundamental data skills needed to conduct research. Its mission is to provide researchers high-quality, domain-specific training covering the full lifecycle of data-driven research. Data Carpentry lessons are intentionally domain specific, and span the life, physical, and social sciences. Data Carpentry workshops create an environment friendly to learners who have little to no prior computational experience, and are designed to empower researchers to apply the skills learned to data driven discovery in their own research.

The Associate Director position is initially funded for 2 years through a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. They will be hired and paid as a contractor of NumFOCUS, Data Carpentry’s fiscal sponsor. Review of applications will begin December 18th, 2015, and the position will remain open until filled.

Job Description

As the Associate Director, you will have primary responsibility for leading and implementing Data Carpentry’s community engagement efforts. You will be responsible for establishing, coordinating, and sustainably growing a healthy supportive volunteer community of contributors, instructors, and learners. In particular, you will be responsible for working with Software Carpentry to build and engage with a pool of well-trained and mentored Data Carpentry instructors, a key strength of the organization. This includes serving on the mentorship subcommittee, providing guidance and oversight to mechanisms for instructor training and development, and serving as the central point of contact for instructors. You will also be responsible for creating and publishing the organization’s newsletter and promotional materials and overseeing and coordinating the organization’s social media presence. Finally, you will have ample opportunities, and be expected to contribute to lesson development and workshop efforts, and to be involved in informing and implementing Data Carpentry’s strategic plans.

The role reports to, and collaborates closely with the Executive Director of Data Carpentry.

Qualifications

We are looking for someone with a passion for training scientists in the skills needed for data-driven discovery, and who is enthusiastic about creating and growing healthy supportive communities. Being successful in this role requires a versatile individual with initiative and leadership, who can work with a diverse group of volunteers, and who can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing, with a broad range of research communities.

In addition to the above, highly qualified applicants will meet several or most of the following specific qualifications and experiences:

• At least a Bachelor's degree; Master’s, PhD or MBA degree preferred.

• Some practical leadership experience, including the demonstrated ability to take initiative, to manage projects, and to coordinate teams.

• Experience in education or training, ideally in training researchers.

• Some experience in data science or related role, in particular working with data requiring technical skills to process effectively.

• Experience working as a researcher, or in a data-driven research environment.

• Experience or interest in working on open source projects.

How to Apply

To apply, please send a cover letter, your CV, and a list of 2 or more references to jobs@datacarpentry.org with 'Associate Director' in the subject line. For position-related inquiries, please contact Dr. Tracy Teal, the Executive Director of Data Carpentry, also using jobs@datacarpentry.org or tkteal@datacarpentry.org.