"REFRAME Program Manager"

REFRAME Program Manager

Company:
North Carolina State University

Job Location:

Category:
Laboratory and Research

Type:
Full-Time

Join the Pack! A community with nearly 8,000 faculty and staff, and 30,000 students. NC State is one of the largest employers in North Carolina, offering a large range of career opportunities. Visit us at https://jobs.hr.ncsu.edu/.

Location: Raleigh, NC

Essential Job Duties:
We are seeking a highly organized, collaborative, and forward-thinking Program Manager to lead coordination for the REFRAME Project-a four-year, externally funded research initiative developing a modular, AI-enabled, open-source platform for feedstock-agnostic evaluation of future biomass systems.

REFRAME integrates legacy open-source models, novel surrogate models, shared metadata frameworks, and advanced large language model (LLM) tools to make biomass systems analysis more accessible, transparent, and impactful for researchers, industry leaders, and policymakers.

This is a unique opportunity to contribute to a high-visibility, interdisciplinary effort at the intersection of AI, sustainability, and digital infrastructure.

Why This Role Matters
As Program Manager, you will serve as an operational support of REFRAME-ensuring the project advances on schedule, within budget, and in alignment with sponsor requirements and institutional policies. You'll act as the central hub connecting faculty, researchers, administrators, and external partners across multiple institutions.

The REFRAME team is a dynamic and growing collaboration of:

• 11 faculty and senior researchers
• 7 graduate students and postdoctoral scholars
• 5 administrative support staff
• Multiple academic, industry, and stakeholder partners

What You'll Do

Program & Project Management (45%)

• Develop and manage integrated project plans, including milestones, deliverables, dependencies, and key decision points
• Coordinate activities across three program pillars: modeling, digital infrastructure, and stakeholder engagement
• Oversee budgeting, procurement, subcontracting, and compliance in partnership with university administrative units
• Support long-range strategy, scope adjustments, and prioritization as project needs evolve

Communication & Collaboration (35%)

• Serve as the primary coordination point among partner institutions and research teams
• Plan and facilitate recurring meetings, leadership briefings, workshops, and site visits
• Prepare agendas, decision summaries, and action tracking to ensure clarity and accountability
• Maintain structured documentation and consistent communication across a distributed collaboration
• Oversee updates to the REFRAME website, ensuring alignment with funder and program messaging

Reporting, Documentation & Data Governance (20%)

• Track performance metrics across program pillars
• Prepare progress reports, sponsor updates, and technical documentation
• Maintain shared repositories, project records, and data governance documentation
• Support open-source release coordination and repository management
• Ensure compliance with sponsor and institutional reporting requirements

What Makes This Opportunity Special

• Be part of a nationally significant, AI-enabled sustainability initiative
• Work at the intersection of digital infrastructure, modeling, and stakeholder engagement
• Collaborate with leading researchers and cross-sector partners
• Contribute to open-source tools designed for broad, long-term impact
• Play a foundational role in shaping a growing, interdisciplinary program

You Belong Here! At NC State, our goal is for all employees to reach their fullest potential at work. As you consider this opportunity, we encourage you to review our Employee Value Proposition (https://news.hr.ncsu.edu/you-belong-here/) and learn more about what makes NC State the best place to learn and work for everyone.

Other Work/Responsibilities:

• Other tasks and responsibilities may be assigned based on the needs of the organization and evolving priorities.

Minimum Experience/Education:

• Bachelor's degree and 3-5 years of project or program management experience, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience in scientific, engineering, technical, or research environments.

Required Qualifications:

• Excellent organizational, written, and interpersonal communication skills.
• Ability to facilitate decision-making among varied teams and leadership groups.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities, timelines, and stakeholder needs with minimal supervision.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience in project or program management.
• Experience coordinating large, multi-institutional or multi-partner initiatives (e.g., academic-industry-government collaborations).
• Experience supporting federally or philanthropically funded research projects, including reporting and compliance requirements.
• Familiarity with scientific or technical project workflows, data governance, or open-source software development practices.
• Proficiency with project management and collaboration tools (e.g., GitHub, Google Workspace, Zoom, shared dashboards, task tracking).

Required License or Certification:

• Valid driver's license.
• Valid NC driver's license within 60 days of hire.