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Primary Purpose of Organizational Unit
Our mission is to improve the health and well-being of North Carolinians and others whom we serve. We accomplish this by providing leadership and excellence in the interrelated areas of patient care, education and research.
Patient care: We promote health and provide superb clinical care while maintaining our strong tradition of reaching underserved populations and reducing health disparities across North Carolina and beyond.
Education: We prepare tomorrow`s healthcare professionals and biomedical researchers from all backgrounds by facilitating learning within innovative and integrated curricula and team-oriented interprofessional education to ensure a highly skilled workforce.
Research: We develop and support a rich array of outstanding health sciences research programs, centers and resources. We provide infrastructure and opportunities for collaboration among disciplines throughout and beyond our university to support outstanding research. We foster programs in the areas of basic, translational, mechanistic and population research.
Position Summary
The Vector-Borne Disease Research Coordinator will be responsible for leading daily operations relating to studies of tick- and mosquito-borne diseases in western North Carolina. The position will be based in Asheville with the primary place of duty being offices at the Mountain Area Health Education Consortium (MAHEC).
Key responsibilities include:
(1) Coordinate enrollment and data collection, and field activities (e.g., entomological surveillance).
(2) Process collected specimens including insects and human samples.
(3) Serve as a liaison between the study team, residents, and stakeholders; when designated, represent the PI at meetings.
(4) Schedule meetings among internal and external collaborators.
(5) Manage inventory and order supplies, as needed.
(6) Ensure study protocols are followed and updated as needed.
(7) Oversee security and management of study-related data.
(8) Prepare regular status reports and communicate results to stakeholders.
The coordinator will be a member of the UNC Vector-borne Disease Epidemiology, Ecology, and Response (VEER) Hub research team, and will work with graduate students, medical students, laboratory technicians/assistants, and other team members to support various projects.
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements
Bachelor’s degree in a discipline related to the area of assignment; or equivalent combination of training and experience. All degrees must be received from appropriately accredited institutions.
Management Preferences
Vector-borne diseases, public health, or entomology experience, especially tick surveillance.
Basic laboratory skills for processing specimens, including pipetting.
Establishing and updating scientific protocols.
Working knowledge of common software: Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook.
Competency with basic statistics including means/confidence intervals, medians/interquartile ranges, and 2×2 tables.
Special Physical/Mental Requirements
Ability to perform field work in varying weather conditions. This includes walking significant distances. Duties to be performed with or without reasonable accommodation.
Campus Security Authority Responsibilities
Not Applicable.
