The Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at Dallas seeks a highly experienced Research Specialist V to work in close collaboration and coordination with the Healthy Living research team, whose work focuses on addressing health disparities and promoting health equity through clinical and community-engaged randomized controlled trials as well as dissemination and implementation research and related projects. The individual in this position will take a lead role in evaluating community-based randomized intervention trials that target primary prevention of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other modifiable risk factors among underserved populations.
The Research Specialist V will contribute to achieving the goals of the Healthy Living program and projects that are focused on health equity and health disparities; food access, food systems, food insecurity, and dietary patterns and behaviors; physical activity behaviors and intervention development; policy system and environmental change; citizen science and community-engaged research; and mHealth technologies for monitoring, assessment, and intervention implementation.
Texas A&M AgriLife is a diverse organization that supports healthy living for all Texans, through the research of targeted agricultural practices that yield nutritious food sources, outreach programs that train community members on growing their own food, and preservation of natural resources via eco-friendly means, all while following practices that lead to a stronger Texas economy. Overseen by the Office of the Vice-Chancellor and Dean for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Texas A&M AgriLife includes the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, Texas A&M AgriLife Research, the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences at Texas A&M University, Texas A&M Forest Service, and Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory.
The Texas A&M AgriLife Center at Dallas houses scientific research, public outreach, and education programs. The Center is a regional hub for all Texas A&M AgriLife activity. It is one of 13 AgriLife Centers across the state – each focusing on issues specific to their region. Initiatives at Dallas hinge on healthy living, urban agriculture and forestry, and water and land resource management. Healthy Living programs at the Center, led by Dr. Rebecca Seguin-Fowler, implement, evaluate, and disseminate scientific solutions, applicable to all Texans, for improved public health. We aim to understand the means of building communities around healthy living and about facilitating the delivery of current, accurate, evidence-based programs, guidelines, and information that supports healthier living for Texans. A state-of-the-art building for healthy living initiatives is being designed at the Dallas campus and will open in 2022.
Responsibilities
Primary responsibilities include:
- Reviews, documents, and develops data structures.
- Analyzes and interprets data using accepted statistical methods, including mixed models for clustered randomized trials.
- Identifies (and leads applications/proposals for access when necessary) public use data sets for use in various projects and papers
- Designs the statistical plan, including power and sample size calculations, for funding proposals for a variety of study designs such as randomized controlled trials, community-randomized trials, and longitudinal cohorts.
- Establishes data collection system and oversees data collection activities, including programming forms and cleaning data.
- Acquires, loads, and merges data from various sources to produce reports and data dashboard.
- Develops and performs assessments to identify problematic data, make corrections, and eliminate causes of problems.
- Describes data collection, cleaning, and analysis in clear and succinct documentation.
- Documents the process of statistical approaches and techniques used in preparation and statistical analysis; provides clear and concise set of findings.
- Prepares reports, presentations, and analysis as well as results sections of manuscripts, including written descriptions of methods and summarizing results in text, tabular, and graphic form.
- Prepares datasets for sharing with other investigators and with the public.
- Other duties as assigned.
