Director of Research (full or part time)

About CommonLit:

CommonLit is a nonprofit education technology organization dedicated to closing the opportunity gap in literacy. We operate a free online reading and writing program, www.CommonLit.org, that has reached over 20 million teachers and students in grades 3-12. 

Job Description:

CommonLit is seeking a Director of Research to plan and implement a broad research agenda that will guide how we develop our curriculum and products. The Director of Research will also act as a liaison between CommonLit and the education research and learning engineering communities. Our platform and data (billions of rows of data) provide a huge array of opportunities to test hypotheses and study how students learn literacy skills. The Director of Research will work with external researchers as well as propose their own research. These research projects will not only guide decision making but also contribute to the field of literacy research more broadly. Further, the Director of Research will lead our measurement and evaluation department, working internally and with external evaluators to deepen our understanding of how we move the needle for students. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience planning and running randomized control trials and other research projects, strong relationship-building skills, and a passion for improving learning outcomes for students. A strong quantitative skill set is required.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as a liaison between CommonLit and external researchers studying literacy education
• Oversee research projects conducted through CommonLit’s platform
• Collaborate with external evaluators studying CommonLit’s effectiveness
• Propose and run studies of specific features and interventions using randomized control trials, A/B tests, and other experimental methodologies
• Promote findings to external stakeholders and within the education research community
• Write and publish new research 
• Work with the engineering and data science teams to build necessary infrastructure and ensure we are collecting the necessary data for research purposes
• Work with the product and curriculum teams to incorporate research into features and curriculum practices

Qualifications:

• PhD (or PhD pending) in program evaluation or other quantitative field
• Expertise in experimental methods
• Experience in K-12 research required
• Expertise in the domain of literacy education preferred
• Experience working with communities of color
• Proven track record of designing and implementing randomized control trials or A/B testing
• Strong project management skills
• Programming experience in R and/or Python preferred
• Comfort extracting and manipulating data from a relational database 

Equal Opportunity:

As an equal opportunity employer, CommonLit values having a diverse workforce and continuously strives to maintain an inclusive and equitable workplace. We encourage people with a diverse range of backgrounds to apply. We do not discriminate against any person based upon their race, traits historically associated with race, religion, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy or related medical conditions, parental status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, or any other legally protected characteristics. If you are a qualified applicant requiring assistance or an accommodation to complete any step of the application process due to a disability, you may contact us at careers@commonlit.org.