"Assistant Senior Manager/ Senior Manager (SPARTAN Center for Agentic AI), School of Computing"

Job Description

Reporting to the Lead Principal Investigator, Prof Abhik Roychoudhury, this role provides strategic and operational leadership for the Centre by independently designing and coordinating programmes, managing partnerships and events, ensuring robust grant administration and compliance, and overseeing all financial, administrative, and outreach activities. As a key liaison among internal and external stakeholders, the incumbent drives the Centre’s mission by ensuring effective execution of activities, supporting the Lead PI, and maintaining high standards of operational excellence, visibility, and stakeholder engagement.

The roles and responsibilities include but not limited to:

• Coordinate center activities and partnerships (regular and ad hoc)
• Independently design and propose programme frameworks and operational policies, presenting recommendations to the Lead PI for approval.
• Lead the planning, organization, and execution of centre activities (regular and ad hoc), ensuring objectives are met and quality standards are maintained.
• Engage and collaborate with external speakers and content contributors from various sectors
• Oversee and ensure smooth execution of centre programmes and events, providing guidance to administrative staff for optimal delive
• Manage grants
• Facilitate and coordinate all administrative and formal grant-related processes in alignment with institutional requirements
• Provide support in formal communications and procedures
• Manage reporting, expenditure, reviews, and grant closure
• Accountable for successful delivery and reporting of grant outcomes to ensure 100% compliance with grant reporting deadlines and requirements
• Liaise with project teams and ensure compliance to policies and procedure
• Manage administrative and financial matters, with support from Executive staff
• Responsible for financial planning, resource allocation, and budgetary oversight for the centre
• Develop and implement the centre’s annual budget plan in consultation with the Lead PI
• Prepare and present reports, presentation materials, publicity materials, and other essential documents to support centre operations and visibility
• Liaise with the university’s research office and funding agencies on administrative and seed grant matters (working with Lead PI
• Provide support to centre operation
• Develop and implement outreach strategies to enhance the centre’s profile and influence.
• Maintain active engagement with members and contacts to ensure Center remains relevant
• Manage branding matters such as online presence
• Provide high-level operational and strategic support to the Lead PI as require
• Provide support to technical direction and initiatives
• Take detailed discussion notes, fact-check and look up references as needed and ensure timely preparation and distribution of meeting minutes, and provide briefing notes
• Perform research and prepare excerpts on specific topics where required
• Engage members and contacts to solicit input, feedback, and contributions to centre initiatives.

Qualifications

• At least a Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (e.g. Business Administration, Science, Engineering, or a related discipline)
• Minimum 5 years of relevant experience, ideally in academia, research, or a related sector
• Proven experience in grant management
• Strong background in financial planning, budget management, and resource allocation
• Demonstrated success in building and managing partnerships across various sectors
• Experience working with principal investigators, research teams, and external stakeholders
• Hands-on experience with grant administration, comp