Research Associate, Strategy and Impact

About the role

The Research Associate will report to the Executive Director of the Friday Institute and will provide direct support to coordinate across initiatives, communicate clearly with internal and external partners, and maintain shared visibility into priorities, progress, and decisions.

Responsibilities

• Conduct structured inquiry (interviews, listening sessions, document review) to understand needs, constraints, and opportunities across partners and initiatives.
• Synthesize research, practitioner feedback, and implementation data into clear insights, recommendations, and decision points for project teams and leadership.
• Translate strategy into actionable workplans (milestones, dependencies, risks, resourcing) and maintain visibility across the portfolio.
• Identify gaps, overlaps, and opportunities for alignment across initiatives; propose pragmatic ways to streamline and strengthen the portfolio.
• Define and track meaningful indicators of progress (implementation readiness, participation, adoption signals, quality measures, partner satisfaction).
• Support lightweight evaluation and learning cycles: collect feedback, document lessons learned, and integrate improvements into next iterations.
• Monitor the broader landscape (policy, research, edtech and AI developments) and flag implications for program design and partner needs.
• Facilitate and/or contribute to convenings, training, and other partner-facing learning opportunities.
• Cook up and coordinate project meetings, working groups, governance structures, and partner communications to support timely decisions and follow-through.
• Prepare, maintain, and update partner-ready project materials for online and print dissemination (briefs, agendas, decision memos, implementation supports), ensuring outputs are clear, consistent, and publication-ready.
• Contribute to project and grant proposals, including framing problems and possibilities of practice and aligning deliverables.
• Draft and coordinate funder-facing reports and updates that communicate progress, evidence, and impact with clarity and credibility.
• Document project activity to capture outcomes, lessons learned, and next-phase recommendations.
• Track and support a pipeline of aligned opportunities; maintain portfolio-level visibility into funding status, commitments, and next steps.

Qualifications

• Relevant Master’s degree in Education or Technology, or a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field plus 5 or more years of experience as a K-12 educator, technology leader, or researcher.
• Demonstrated ability to gather, analyze, and synthesize research, stakeholder feedback, and implementation data to identify insights, trends, and opportunities for improvement.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex ideas for academic and practitioner audiences through written materials, presentations, and other communications.