NRT PROGRAM COORDINATOR, College of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Morgan Lab

The NRT Project Coordinator will play an important role in managing Boston University’s newest National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) Program, “A Convergent Training Program on Biological Control.” The goal of this program is to develop a new community for training graduate students in this growing field, and requires a highly energetic, organized, and community-oriented staff to build this exciting new effort.

As a key member of the NRT leadership team, the Project Coordinator will:

• Work closely with faculty and staff directors on a daily basis
• Promote community and collaboration amongst all participants, prioritizing student growth, sense of belonging, and self-efficacy
• Manage day-to-day operations for graduate student trainee recruitment, admissions, retention, and progress, including:
• Advertise program through various means (see marketing section below) with an emphasis on diversifying STEM
• Create application process, yearly recruitment schedule, selection criteria, and necessary tools to enact these
• Conduct interviews for trainees (current undergraduate seniors and graduate students both within and beyond BU)
• Work with participating departmental graduate admissions offices at BU to disseminate information about the program and assist with recruiting and admitting students
• Develop initiatives to support trainees and ensure retention through various means, such as data collection and evaluation, regular check-ins with program participants, planning social and/or teambuilding events, and providing individual support to trainees
• Manage trainee stipend payments
• Organize quarterly meetings of representatives from the participating graduate programs to coordinate recruitment, mentoring, and retention activities
• Assist grants manager in maintaining records of all purchases and personnel costs
• Plan and provide operational support for all program events (bootcamps, workshops, internship opportunities, annual symposia)
• Manage marketing for NRT program, including:
• Create and manage program-specific accounts for X (formerly Twitter) and Linked-In, specifically around recruitment and upcoming events/requirements for student trainees
• Work with additional channels across BU (MarCom, individual college and departmental marketing teams, public relations, the Office of Research) to disseminate information about the program
• Create and maintain an interactive website for the NRT program using BU's Research template in WordPress
• Create digital posters, power point templates, and physical fliers, tri-folds, meeting agendas, and programs for all events
• Help gather and disseminate data on student progress and faculty development

NRT Graduate Student Training Program Description/Background

Biological control is an emerging discipline in which study of the engineering principles of feedback control merges with investigations of the diverse array of self-regulating systems in biology. At present, educational and research opportunities in biological control are limited to ad hoc collaborations whose scale is insufficient to meet the growing workforce demand in biotechnology, manufacturing, robotics, systems engineering, data science, rehabilitation, bioremediation, agriculture, and sustainability. As such, the new NRT program seeks to create an integrated training environment where faculty, trainees, and external partners collectively develop new approaches for describing feedback control methods uniquely found in biology. Researchers in the program will then use these constructs to create new engineered systems, new experimental approaches for gaining control of biological systems, and new teaching strategies for supporting this important new discipline. The NRT program includes faculty, staff, and graduate students from many departments across the university, including mechanical, biomedical, and electrical engineering; biology; physics; chemistry; bioinformatics; biochemistry; and computing and data sciences.

A cover letter is required for consideration.

• Bachelor's degree with 3+ years of experience or a Master's degree with 1+ years of experience
• Strong interpersonal and leadership skills and:
• a demonstrated ability to work well with a diverse student population;
• ability to develop and manage relationships across various stakeholders (i.e. graduate trainees, principal investigators, program and university administration, and industry, government, and nonprofit partners);
• ability to work both independently and as part of a team;
• ability to collect and analyze data.
• Experience working with graduate students or young people in a higher education or nonprofit organization is preferred.