Associate Director for Data Science

Cover letter is required.

This role is currently primarily remote, with occasional onsite attendance required based on business needs.

The work arrangement may be modified in the future to support departmental or organizational needs.

The Analytics and Institutional Research team within the Office of Academic Planning and Budget (APB) aims to foster student success and optimize UCLA's operational effectiveness by facilitating data-driven decision-making. APB serves as the primary source of official data reported from administrative systems across the University, conducts objective research and analysis for decision makers, leverages an understanding of advanced analytical methods to improve understanding of institutional and program performance, builds data collections, facilitates access to institutional data, and advocates for data quality and integrity. Reporting directly to the Executive Director, Analytics and Institutional Research the incumbent will use his/her advanced quantitative skillset to support the current data and reporting needs of numerous campus entities, including the offices of the EVC/P and Chancellor, through a combination of hands on technical programming as well as achieving organizational objectives through the coordinated achievements of subordinate staff. By combining a knowledge of database design principles, modern programming skills and visualization software, advanced knowledge of analytical methods, consultative skills to work with campus stakeholders to understand their needs and translate them into technical requirements, and to manage and direct technical staff, the incumbent will utilize various sources of campus data to optimize campus operations as well as improve student outcomes. As the campus moves towards the creation of a centralized data lake, the incumbent will also need to be adept at working within modern data environments like AWS, be able to offer input and feedback on the provisioning of data governance tools, and understand how these tools can help streamline the work of their team as well as other users of our data environment. The use cases and requests brought to Analytics and Institutional Research team are broad, so a strong understanding of and experience working within higher education is needed to provide accurate, timely, and actionable results to stakeholders, and to help provide the needed background and context for projects delegated to their staff. The most commonly assigned projects require knowledge of data related to students, academic and non-academic employees, finance, facilities, as well as external higher education data providers like the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) or AAUDE.