Senior Research Specialist, Strategic Policy, Innovation, and Research

Senior Research Specialist, Strategic Policy, Innovation, and Research

100% Remote within California, Must reside in California

The Success Center supports California Community Colleges in advancing equity-centered student success through policy development, research, strategic projects, field engagement, and professional development. This work is engaging, fast-paced, and ever evolving and requires a flexible personality who enjoys working in a team-based environment. The Foundation for California Community Colleges is the trusted partner of the California Community Colleges, facilitating collaboration, accelerating innovation, and increasing system-wide resources.
What You’ll Do

The Senior Research Specialist, Strategic Policy, Innovation, and Research supports the Strategic Policy, Innovation, and Research (SPIR) unit by leading and contributing to complex research, evaluation, and data analysis initiatives that advance student success, equity, and higher education policy goals. This role involves designing and conducting quantitative and qualitative research, managing projects through the full lifecycle, translating findings into actionable policy and practice recommendations, and serving as a key source of research and analytical expertise for the Success Center and its partners. The position is primarily remote with some travel required.

- Lead the design and execution of research and evaluation projects that advance Success Center priorities and strategic goals.

- Independently conduct quantitative and qualitative analyses, synthesize findings, and develop evidence-based recommendations for policy and practice.

- Lead and manage research activities, including project scoping, data collection, analysis, interpretation, dissemination, and reporting. Independently analyze large and complex datasets, such as Chancellor’s Office Management and Information System (COMIS) data and publicly available data (e.g., IPEDS and Census), using Stata, SQL, and other analytical tools.

- Develop near-final drafts of research reports, papers, policy briefs, presentations, data visualizations, dashboards, and other products that translate complex research findings into actionable policy and practice recommendations to improve success for California Community Colleges students

- Synthesize quantitative and qualitative evidence into clear strategies that support decision-making among college leaders, policymakers, practitioners, funders, and other stakeholders

- Lead research and evaluation projects with limited supervision through the full project lifecycle, including planning, coordination, implementation, risk mitigation, stakeholder engagement, timeline management, and reporting.

- Serve as a research and data resource for the Success Center. Provide guidance and technical expertise related to data analysis, research design, interpretation of findings, and higher education policy issues.

- Represent the Success Center at state, regional, and national meetings, convenings, conferences, and workgroups.

Attributes for Success

- Minimum of five years of progressive professional or educational experience in research, evaluation, and innovative project implementation.

- Minimum three years of experience contributing to project leadership through planning, coordination, and reporting.

- Experience engaging senior leadership, policymakers, or executive stakeholders in advancing organizational or system-level goals.

- Excellent research, evaluation, and analytical skills, including advanced qualitative and qualitative methodologies, with the ability to clean, analyze, and interpret large, complex data sets using software, data analysis software such as Stata, R, SQL and/or Atlas.ti to develop evidence-based recommendations, inform decision-making, and support research and policy objectives.

- Extensive knowledge of the California Community Colleges system and higher education landscape, including policies, programs, data, and