Research Specialist | REAACT

The Regulation of Emotion in Autistic Adults, Children, and Teens (REAACT) (www.reaact.pitt.edu) Lab, an NIH Autism Center of Excellence, is seeking a full time Research Specialist for several interconnected research projects focused on understanding factors that improve mental health and reduce the risk of suicide in autistic people. The Research Specialist will be responsible for administrative support and management of our community partnership and engagement efforts within the local and national disability communities. This employee will also coordinate our dissemination strategies to share science with community members. The ideal candidate has interest and experience with the autism community, in addition to strong networking, organizational, and project management skills.

This position is grant funded.

Responsibilities:

Provide coordination, oversite, and support for all Dissemination and Community Partnership activities.

• • Support the coordination with several national consortium groups related to community engagement and dissemination.
  • Support the Pittsburgh Adult Autism Research Community Collaborative (PAARCC). PAARCC is a community research collaborative between autism researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and autistic adults and their allies. The PAARCC group contains two distinct groups, one primarily autistic community members and another including local community leaders.
    • Assist in planning and attending PAAARCC meetings, take notes, send reminders for meetings, edit agendas and reading materials, and create monthly newsletters through Canva.
    • Maintain all community partner activity and highlights on our REAACT website.
    •  Support supervisor in identifying community leaders to involve in our PAARCC group.
  • Support the Schools Unified in Neurodiversity Collaborative. 
    • Provide the primary support for outreach and partnerships with local school districts and non-profit organizations for our school related projects.
    • Plan, support, and organize all meetings with partnering school districts.
    • Plan, support, and organize all trainings with partnering school districts.
  • Coordinate Continuing Education Series 
    • Coordinating all continuing education efforts, credits through UPMC CEU group, advertise, working with speakers, and organizing potential speaker series. 

Develop and oversee social media for the center

• • • • Implement posts several times per week
      • Analyze social media performance monthly in addition to specific campaigns (ex. Autism Acceptance Month)
      • Work with faculty researchers on generating content 
      • Website development and management

Lead all community engagement efforts to enhance partnership and recruitment.

• •  Research and generate recommendations of ways to support and promote community partners (e.g. sponsor events).
  • Support outreach efforts by scheduling meetings; scheduling conference calls, making arrangements, and related correspondence; make recommendations for large meeting venues and catering, ensure meetings and conferences flow smoothly
  • Coordinate and speak at speaking events if needed
  •  Monitor and attend conferences and other events for recruitment
  • Coordinate recruitment progress across projects to identify REAACT-wide initiatives for community outreach, engagement, and recruitment.
  •  Attend meetings and give reports/updates about recruitment

Generate recruitment strategies through community engagement

• • Developing relationships and managing activities with groups that have been marginalized (e.g. racial and ethnic identities, female sex, LGBTQIA+ community, intellectual disability, and rural and under-resourced communities)
  • Develop and distribute written material used in marketing/recruitment
  • Work with media teams to create recruitment videos for ACE and other projects
  • Oversee all filming and media production for the ACE and other projects.

• Oversee the ordering and distribution of recruitment materials
• Ability to work independently with little supervision once trained.
• Perform other duties as related to the research project as requested by the Principal Investigator, Program Director, study-specific coordinators, and/or supervisors. 
• Must be able to juggle and prioritize tasks and keep open communication with the Principal Investigators and supervisors to ensure timely completion of all duties
• Performs in accordance with system-wide competencies/behaviors
• Available to work evenings and/or weekends occasionally.