Project Manager

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Who We Are

NewGlobe supports visionary governments to transform public education systems, the cornerstone of a prosperous, equitable, and peaceful society.

With a comprehensive system transformation platform and data-driven educational services, NewGlobe delivers rapid and dramatic improvements in learning outcomes at state and nationwide scale. Through building impactful partnerships and programmes, NewGlobe ensures that all children have access to an education that will develop their full potential and create a foundation for growth and prosperity. 

NewGlobe leverages more than a decade of educational experience and proven impact in integrated school management, teacher professional development, instructional design innovation, technological system support, child-centered classroom practice, and parent engagement -- all grounded in learning science -- to ensure each teacher is empowered to engage children in transformational learning, and all children have the opportunity to develop to their full potential. Every day, NewGlobe supports governments to solve what were once seen as intractable problems, and by doing so, ensures this generation will be able to grow up to lead more fulfilled lives, while simultaneously building economic prosperity for themselves, their communities, and the globe. 

NewGlobe’s high-touch, intensive professional development programs, along with integrated school management, teacher support, and assessment software, enable schools to succeed. NewGlobe works within state and national curriculum and syllabi, ensuring all children are empowered to learn their own history, and master local content, while being globally competitive in mathematics and languages. The science of behaviour change and the science of learning is at the foundation of all programming. 

NewGlobe works with urgency because youth quickly becomes adulthood and relentlessly because improvement requires continuous problem-solving. NewGlobe is honoured to serve and to help rebuild trust in public systems. 

NewGlobe’s work is all encompassing and will challenge you to use your full mind, and heart, each day. We need bright minds who want to be part of building a new globe -- a more equitable globe -- to join us. 

Academics

The objective of the Academics group is to drive student achievement. To do so, we must know what is happening minute-by-minute for the typical child. The student’s daily experience, and thus the path to achievement, emerges from their relationship with the teachers and the content that is delivered in the classroom. Our team is collaboratively organized around these levers. We develop rigorous content pitched at the right level for students to be delivered by a teacher who is prepared to succeed in the classroom. 

Research, Measurement & Evaluation

The Research, Measurement & Evaluation (RME) team at NewGlobe is housed within the Academics group and collaborates across departments to help leaders assess the quality of teaching and learning at NewGlobe. We work to answer the core questions of “How well are we doing?”, “Are we getting better?”, and “How can we get even better?”. We blend quantitative analyses with qualitative field work to measure what matters most, provide feedback to NewGlobe school leaders and managers, assess our impact on student learning, and communicate the results to various internal and external audiences.

At the heart of our work is comparative analysis. We compare student learning at NewGlobe across time and place. In all of our locations, we examine how much faster NewGlobe students learn than their peers in similar schools. We examine how student performance today compares to student performance yesterday. We examine sub-groups of students to advance equity. We examine variability across our schools to determine which characteristics matter most to student learning. We help NewGlobe managers assess the impact of the changes they have made to accelerate learning.

We take pride in providing rigorous measurement, study design, and analysis. We also take pride in our ability to communicate clearly in words, tables, and data visualizations. We intend our work to make a difference in how NewGlobe managers and our government partners think and act. We judge our own work accordingly.

Collaboration sits at the heart of the RME team at NewGlobe. We collaborate with our internal team members as well as with our government partners. With every product, we enter into a collaborative conversation with those who operate and those who study. RME has established deep partnerships with the education ministries, with local research organizations, and with international researchers who focus on teaching and learning, especially those who focus on the aspects of schooling most relevant to the students we serve.

About the Role

We are seeking a full-time Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager to join our team. We are looking for someone eager to conduct impactful research, share their expertise, and build upon a tradition of evaluation and data excellence at NewGlobe.

The Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager will support two different work streams. First, the Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager will help with the design, implementation, analysis, and write up of impact evaluation studies to assess NewGlobe’s operational and instructional performance. The Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager will support all aspects of this work, including technical guidance, project management, and professional development of relevant stakeholders. This workstream is highly valuable to the organization as we rapidly serve students in more schools and countries. 

The second work stream corresponds to creation of research products that directly inform the continuous improvement of our services, across all academic areas. This research can span wide-reaching topics like the study of NewGlobe’s assessments and curriculum, the analysis of internal rapid-cycle A/B tests, the quantification of pupil growth trajectories, and the estimation of teacher value-added models, among other exciting topics. We place an extremely high value on direct policy relevance, and as such, the Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager should have a keen and entrepreneurial eye for the issues faced by our stakeholders on the ground, and how our research can speak to those.

For the Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager to successfully deliver impactful research products, they should be able to creatively and deftly use a mixture of survey and sampling tools, descriptive analysis, data visualization, causal inference, and psychometric models. We are not expecting the Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager to be an expert on all of these areas from the start, but we are expecting the RME Project Manager to have a hunger to learn more about each of these topics and to proactively seek their own professional growth, either in a self-directed fashion or through collaboration with other colleagues. 

The Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager must also be able to effectively work with people from diverse backgrounds, display significant emotional intelligence, and create a sense of calm in an often fast-moving environment. 

The Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager should be willing to work in either Cambridge, MA; Lagos, Nigeria; Nairobi, Kenya; or Kigali, Rwanda. The Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager will report to the Vice President, Research, Measurement and Evaluation. Significant travel is required.

What You Will Do

• Design and Direct the Execution of Research Studies. The Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager will work closely with the Research, Measurement and Evaluation team and the Research, Measurement and Evaluation Vice President to design and execute research studies. These responsibilities include, but are not limited to, ensuring the soundness of and tradeoffs among the choice of research design, sampling methods, selection of measures, creation of statistical models, data visualization, and mode of communications. The Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager will also liaise with on-ground research teams to execute the logistics for impact evaluations, which include, but are not limited to, the creation and distribution of assessments, designing the data entry platforms, and enumerator management.
• Building and maintaining knowledge management infrastructure for the Research, Measurement and Evaluation team. The Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager collaborates with the VP of RME, Senior Data Analyst, and Senior Research Fellow to develop knowledge products for use by the RME team, which include, but are not limited to, training materials, protocols on data collection and analyses, and creating organization tools for the team. The Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager will establish and monitor best practices for information storage and sharing on platforms shared by the Research, Measurement and Evaluation team. The RME Project Manager will also provide capacity building for Research, Measurement and Evaluation team members on knowledge management protocols. Furthermore, the Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager will oversee the knowledge-sharing platforms shared by other teams in NewGlobe, ensuring content is current and easy to find. Develop plans and manage projects. This includes developing a work breakdown structure, creating a timeline, liaising with other departments to get the support you need, managing and motivating short-term staff members, figuring out how to get things done when things don’t go as planned, getting the data you need and getting it right, conducting analyses, framing the results, and answering any and all questions about your work.
• Identify Opportunities to Enhance Effectiveness and Efficiency. The Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager supports NewGlobe’s ability to deliver a world-class education by helping NewGlobe use information for improvement. With limited resources, the RME Project Manager must prioritize high-potential research and build efficiencies that strengthen the research and/or enable more research to be conducted.
• Accommodate requests for quick analyses. Time-sensitive questions will come from the VPs and C-Level Executives, and usually take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Often, you will need to use your best judgment in the face of imperfect data. 
• Write. The RME Project Manager, when necessary, supports the Research Fellows on our research publications, scripts for presentations, and policy briefs. RME provides an update for every program, every year. It is essential that the RME Project Manager is able to write succinctly, in ways our audiences understand and appreciate.
• Supporting RME Senior Data Analysts. The RME Project Manager will  coordinate with the RME Senior Data Analyst on impact evaluation data collection management, including, but not limited to, liaising with on-ground research staff,  overseeing the data quality assurance practices, and coordinating with Senior Data Analyst on research design.  The RME Project Manager will support team members to ensure that they are correctly utilizing proper research methods and statistical models. 
• Establish Data Collection and Reporting Protocols. The RME Project Manager is responsible to establish and enact data collection and reporting protocols to ensure timely communications to relevant NewGlobe managers. The Research, Measurement and Evaluation Project Manager will monitor current reporting targets and deliverables to ensure timely reporting.
• Nurture and manage relationships with external stakeholders. The RME Project Manager will be able to present and discuss results and study designs to different external stakeholders, such as government partners, external researchers, and policymakers, and lead informational capacity-building workshops. The RME Project Manager will also be asked to support in presentations at conferences or with government partners.

What You Should Have

• Strong experience using quantitative research methods – Previous experience in an academic or applied setting, such as being an analyst, research assistant, data manager, or consultant. You are comfortable with one or more of the following areas: survey and sampling tools, descriptive analysis, data visualization, causal inference, psychometric models, and predictive models. 
• Strong communication skills and the ability to translate complex ideas for non-technical audiences – you will need effective verbal and written communication skills to provide valuable insights and research reports for internal and external stakeholders
• Global team management experience – to direct, mentor, and oversee members of the RME team, you should possess effective leadership, coordination, and motivation skills
• Organization skills – to successfully direct and oversee all quality assurance procedures and coordinate production processes you should have strong organization skills
• A high level of proficiency with Stata or R, and Excel.  Any other data analysis software or coding language is a plus. Experience with survey software like Qualtrics, SurveyCTO, or Google Forms is also a plus.
• An advanced degree – in a relevant academic discipline, for example (but not limited to) Economics, Public or Education Policy, or Statistics.  
• Passion – for NewGlobe’s mission.
• Bonus – experience in extreme growth situations and dealing with complexity; worked/studied in a developing country, worked in a no-excuses charter school in high-poverty areas in the U.S., and/or experience implementing data collection projects, particularly for impact evaluations.

You’re also

• A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done. You’re organized and responsive. You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. You can multi-task dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details. Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth company.
• A networking mastermind – You excel at meeting new people and turning them into advocates.  You communicate in a clear, conscientious, and effective way in both written and oral speech. You can influence strangers in the course of a single conversation. Allies and colleagues will go to bat for your ideas. You have an existing network from prior experience in the country, preferably in the regulatory, education, or business sectors.
• A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, NewGlobe works in often fragile, sometimes volatile low-resource communities and with complex government systems. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand.
• A relentless advocate –The children we serve and teachers we empower never leave your mind. You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future). You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like.  Every decision you make considers their benefit, experience,
  and value.
• A malleable learner –You believe you can always do better. You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others.  You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed today.
• A curious investigator – You ask why a lot. You don’t just take what you see and accept it. You wonder why it is that way, and are aware that the world we see is created by human choices and actions – and it could be different. You wonder, and see the world as wonderful even when you want to change a part of it that is unjust.

#LI-DR1