About AEM
At AEM, we help public-sector organizations use data to improve decisions and services. We build and support secure data platforms, research operations, and tools that make complex information accurate and useful. We are looking for team members who are ready to engage and become an integral part of our team as we continue to push to impact the field of education in powerful ways.
About the Role
AEM is seeking an experienced Project Director (Study Design Lead) to join our team supporting federal education research and data projects. This is a hands-on role for someone who has designed, implemented, and managed federal education studies in real-world settings, not simply advised others on how the work should be done. You will serve as primary point of contact for the client and work directly with the Principal Investigator, survey statistician, research partners, and operations staff on U.S. Department of Education and/or Institute of Education Sciences-funded studies and surveys to develop sound approaches and produce high-quality work that meets federal requirements and project deadlines.
You will lead AEM's study design coordination and research operations, manage the schedule, deliverables, monthly status reporting, quality, and subcontracts, and lead development of the OMB/Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) clearance package. You will translate research objectives into practical instruments, protocols, and data collection plans; oversee respondent support and survey completion tracking; and coordinate applicable ED research, privacy, security, and review requirements. We are looking for someone who is equally comfortable working through a delivery problem independently and sitting alongside teammates to solve it together.
What You'll Do (Key Responsibilities)
- Serve as the client's primary point; build and maintain strong customer relationships, lead client meetings, and document decisions.
- Manage day-to-day delivery against contractual performance requirements, scope, budget, and due dates. Maintain an integrated schedule, staffing plan, dependencies, risks, and mitigation strategies.
- Prepare monthly status reports and maintain deliverable, action, decision, and risk tracking; communicate progress, resource needs, schedule impacts, and issues requiring government decisions early.
- Lead study design coordination with the Principal Investigator and survey statistician, aligning research questions, target populations, reporting periods, instruments, sampling assumptions, data sources, and analysis plans with the intended findings.
- Lead review of survey instruments, administration protocols, and data collection plans, including cognitive testing, pilot activities, language access, accessibility, and operational readiness.
- Lead AEM's preparation and management of the OMB/PRA information collection package, including Supporting Statements Parts A and B, instruments, recruitment materials, respondent burden estimates, and responses to review comments. Coordinate statistical content with the survey statistician and submission and approval activities with ED.
- Coordinate IRB submissions and amendments, institutional assurances, parental permission and student assent procedures, and school or district research approvals with the Principal Investigator and designated compliance experts; track required approvals before affected activities begin.
- Lead AEM's research operations, including district and school recruitment, coordinator training, field schedules, survey administration, makeup sessions, and coordination of survey and administrative-record collection activities with research partners.
- Oversee respondent support, including scripts, FAQs, training, service expectations, issue tracking, and escalation. Ensure support staff follow approved privacy and student-safety protocols and route sensitive disclosures to designated personnel.
- Oversee survey access, completion tracking, participation monitoring, and final case dispositions; coordinate follow-up and response-rate monitoring while maintaining the approved separation of permission records, identifiers, and survey answers.
- Coordinate with platform, data, privacy, and security teams on approved workflows, access controls, data transfers, retention, and disclosure protections; oversee user acceptance testing and defect resolution.
- Manage subcontractor and consultant work plans, deliverables, and performance; coordinate resource and delivery needs with contracts, subcontracts, PMO, and finance staff.
- Supervise and support a multidisciplinary team; clarify responsibilities, monitor capacity, mentor staff, and promote effective collaboration across AEM and research partners.
- Manage quality reviews of instruments, protocols, data products, documentation, and reports; coordinate independent methods reviews and track comments through resolution.
- Prepare review-ready deliverables and briefings, document decisions, and support government disclosure and publication reviews and final data handoff.
How We Work
- Hands-on: Seniority does not mean stepping away from the work. You will personally analyze problems, develop plans and protocols, write and review documentation, resolve issues, and help produce final deliverables.
- Team-first: We value expertise without ego. You share what you know, listen to other perspectives, ask questions, seek help early, and step in when a teammate needs support. The goal is the best team outcome, not individual ownership of the smartest idea.
- Quality-focused: You care about getting the details right. You check your work, welcome peer review, document decisions, and produce work that can withstand technical and client scrutiny.
- Delivery-oriented: Quality and timeliness go together. You organize your work, communicate risks early, and take ownership of meeting commitments. Whenever possible, you create enough runway for team review rather than delivering at the last minute.
- Practical problem solvers: We value rigorous research, but we also need people who can apply it. You can translate study requirements and methodological recommendations into workable approaches that fit the study, data, schedule, and client requirements.
What You'll Bring to the Role (Required Qualifications)
- A master's degree or higher in education research, survey methodology, public policy, social science, program evaluation, or a closely related field.
- At least 10 years of progressively responsible, hands-on experience delivering federal education research. We are looking for candidates who have personally done this work, not only supervised or advised teams performing it.
- Direct responsibility for study or project schedules and review cycles, including responding to technical review comments and revising methods or analyses when needed
- Strong technical writing and collaboration skills, including the ability to explain your reasoning, receive and incorporate feedback, challenge ideas constructively, and work alongside colleagues with different areas of expertise.
- Direct experience working on and managing U.S. Department of Education studies or surveys, including hands-on responsibility for study planning, instruments and protocols, data collection operations, technical documentation, and client deliverables.
- Demonstrated experience translating research objectives into an integrated study design and operational plan, working with a Principal Investigator, survey statistician, and subject-matter experts to assess feasibility and resolve methodological and delivery tradeoffs.
- Experience leading or substantially managing OMB/PRA clearance packages and review cycles, including Supporting Statements Parts A and B, respondent burden, collection materials, and resolution of government comments.
- Working knowledge of requirements relevant to ED research and data collection, including human-subjects protections and IRB processes, FERPA, PPRA, privacy and disclosure review, Section 508 accessibility, and ED information security requirements; ability to identify when specialist or government determinations are needed.
- Working knowledge of OMB statistical survey standards and familiarity with NCES Statistical Standards, including the ability to coordinate their application when required and oversee the quality and documentation of study methods.
- Proven management track record in schedule, scope, budget, risk, quality, client, staff, and subcontract management, including monthly reporting and delivery of complete, review-ready work under firm deadlines.
- Experience overseeing respondent support and participation tracking for data collections, including training, issue escalation, follow-up, and protection of confidential information.
- Strong writing, communication, relationship, and problem-solving skills; ability to explain design and operational decisions to technical and nontechnical audiences and collaborate productively in a fast-paced, matrixed environment.
- Ability to obtain a security clearance or suitability determination, if required by a client contract; an active security clearance is preferred.
Nice-to-Haves (Preferred Qualifications)
- Experience supporting OMB clearance for sensitive or school-based data collections, including coordination with IRBs and federal privacy or disclosure review processes.
- Hands-on statistical expertise in power and precision analyses, complex probability sampling, stratification, clustering, sample allocation, survey weights, calibration, variance estimation, replicate weights, and nonresponse bias analysis.
- Experience using R, SAS, Stata, Python, or comparable tools to develop, review, or troubleshoot complex-survey analyses and validate statistical outputs.
- Experience supporting national or subgroup prevalence estimates, independent methods reviews, and research combining surveys with administrative records while preserving distinctions among populations, reporting periods, and units of analysis.
- Experience configuring or overseeing electronic survey platforms, completion dashboards, and separation of respondent identity from survey answers.
- Experience supporting expedited federal clearance activities or coordinating overlapping IRB, OMB, privacy, security, and school approval processes.
- Project Management Professional (PMP) certification and/or What Works Clearinghouse certification(s).
Equal Employment and Applicant Information
AEM and its affiliates are equal opportunity employers. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Federal law requires AEM and its affiliates to verify identity and employment eligibility using Form I-9 information. AEM uses the E-Verify system.
Applicants who are California residents may review AEM's privacy policy and California Consumer Privacy Act information on AEM's website.
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AEM Corporation
$165,000-$185,000
Nov 12, 2026