Position:Director of Evaluation & Research (Full-Time Employee)
Reports to: Executive Director
Location: Mindful Schools Office (Emeryville, CA)
Classification: Exempt
Compensation: Base salary depending on experience; generous benefits package including medical, dental, vision, vacation time, and retreat time after 6 weeks of employment

Mindful Schools, a worldwide leader in training educators on mindfulness and how to bring it into their work with youth, is looking for an Evaluation & Research Coordinator to ensure that our work is consistently and effectively evaluated, to support our thousands of graduates in measuring their own impact on youth, and to help us to identify and pursue strategic research opportunities.

This candidate must be a strong project manager, collaborator, and communicator with experience evaluating educational programs and the ability to understand world-class research, quickly identifying key takeaways. They should have a working understanding of statistics, quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods, research study designs, randomized controlled trials, and general research best practices.

This is a salaried, exempt position targeting 100% time with flexible hours. The candidate must be passionate about the mission of Mindful Schools and our commitment to supporting the research community in proving the benefits of mindfulness to educators and youth.

Key Responsibilities

Ensure that our courses are consistently and effectively evaluated:
Experiment with various ways to assess our programs
Develop metrics and methodology that we can consistently use to measure the effectiveness and impact of our courses
Identify areas of improvement to feed back to our program team
Support our thousands of graduates in measuring their own impact on youth:
Find appropriate quantitative and qualitative measures that graduates can use
Develop efficient, scalable methods for gathering impact and assessment data from our graduates to help their self-assessments as well as our own
Identify and pursue strategic research opportunities:
Track research being done in the field
Meet with leading researchers to identify potential strategic collaborations
Coordinate with research partners on active projects
Summarize and communicate interesting research to our community:
Stay abreast of the latest research developments
Write blog/Facebook posts to help translate research for our community

Requirements

Understanding of statistics, quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods, research study designs, randomized controlled trials, and general research best practices.
Outstanding knowledge of research-to-date in fields relevant to the work of Mindful Schools:
Specifically, strong candidates will have deep familiarity with education and youth mental health research generally, as well as with research on mindfulness and social & emotional learning (SEL) interventions for children and adolescents specifically.
Strong candidates will also have some direct experience conducting research and/or program evaluation on mindfulness and SEL programs in schools.
Graduate-level research experience. This could take several forms:
Strong candidates may be at a Master’s level in education, clinical psychology or social work but have already developed a strong base in mindfulness & education research.
Strong candidates may be doctoral students.
Strong candidates may be post-doctoral fellows.
Strong candidates may have had careers in educational program evaluation.
Outstanding project management skills. Specifically:
The ability to track and handle multiple requests, tasks and projects.
Excellent time management skills.
Excellent organizational and task-tracking skills.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Hours & Compensation

This is a salaried position with a generous benefit package including medical, dental, vision, vacation time, and retreat time after 6 weeks. Compensation will vary based on candidate experience.
Hours are flexible– full-time on site at our office in Emeryville, CA

How to apply

Please complete this form and email your cover letter and résumé to hiring@mindfulschools.org with the subject “Director of Evaluation and Research.” Applications without a cover letter will not be considered.