Job title: Research Specialist, Centre of Excellence in Women and Child health
Primary location: Pakistan
Organisation: Aga Khan Hospital & Medical College
Employment status: Contractual
Job type: Standard
Job posting date (day/month/year): 29/10/2026, 5:43:08 PM
Closing date (day/month/year): 01/11/2026, 11:59:00 PM
Employer page timezone: Asia/Karachi
Research Specialist, Centre of Excellence in Women and Child health
Entity: Aga Khan University
Location: Sujawal
Introduction to the Aga Khan University:
The Aga Khan University is a private, international university committed to international standards of excellence in teaching, research and service. Its teaching hospital, the Aga Khan University Hospital has been accredited by the prestigious Joint Commission International for achieving the highest international healthcare standards.
As an equal opportunity employer, AKU believes in promoting a diverse and inclusive culture and is committed to adopt appropriate standards for safeguarding and promoting a respectful relationship with and between diverse workforce of its faculty, staff, trainees, volunteers, beneficiaries, wider communities, and other stakeholders with whom it works, including children and vulnerable adults and expects all employees/trainees and partners to share this commitment.
This a grant funded contractual position.
Job Role /
Responsibilities:
The candidate will supervise project activities from field to data management to ensure quality control and maintain good working relationship with staff, community and stake holder. He/she will assume overall responsibility for the preparation of protocols and data collection instruments/questionnaires, finalization of monitoring and data management options, Ethics committee approval, development of recruitment strategies to increase patient randomization into the study/trial, the provision of clinical trial materials, and management of the trial.
You will be responsible to:
- supervise day-to-day implementation of assigned project activities at community and health-facility levels;
- ensure activities are conducted according to approved workplans, SOPs, tools, and implementation guidelines;
- supervise Research Associates and other assigned field staff;
- conduct regular field visits to monitor implementation quality and progress;
- support the planning, arrangement, participation and monitoring of community and adolescent engagement activities, including meetings, sessions, outreach and other project events;
- participate in and monitor outreach camps and other community-based service/engagement activities as assigned;
- identify implementation gaps and recommend corrective actions to the Manager;
- support implementation of midline, monitoring, evaluation and other research activities;
- supervise administration of quantitative and qualitative data collection tools, including CRFs and/or questionnaires, where applicable;
- ensure data collection and research procedures comply with approved protocols, SOPs and applicable Good Clinical Practice (GCP) requirements;
- conduct routine checks for completeness, consistency and accuracy of collected data;
- coordinate with the data/M&E team to resolve data discrepancies and quality issues;
- support hospital/mortality surveillance and disease surveillance from project and non-project health facilities, as applicable to the assigned project activities;
- maintain appropriate documentation and records of data collection, surveillance and monitoring activities;
- support analysis and interpretation of project data;
- coordinate with community leaders, parent/caregivers, influencers, adolescents/youth representatives, health workers, health-facility staff and relevant government representatives;
- facilitate and monitor community and adolescent engagement and mobilization activities;
- support coordination for project trainings, meetings, assessments, outreach camps and other field activities;
- maintain records of stakeholder engagements and follow-up actions;
- provide on-the-job coaching and technical support to Research Associates and field staff;
- support orientation and training of project staff on data collection tools, SOPs and project procedures;
- monitor staff performance and identify capacity-building needs;
- prepare high-quality field, weekly and monthly progress reports as required;
- consolidate field-level data, achievements, challenges and recommendations;
- support preparation of monthly and quarterly project reports;
- maintain accurate project documentation and records;
- prepare presentations and summaries for project review meetings as required;
- contribute to concept notes, proposals, protocols, reports and manuscripts;
- support preparation of abstracts, presentations and dissemination materials;
- contribute to interpretation and documentation of implementation lessons and findings.
Eligibility Criteria /
Requirements:
- master's degree in Public Health, Epidemiology/Biostatistics, Health Policy and Management, Anthropology, Sociology, Nutrition, Development Studies or another relevant discipline;
- training in research methods, monitoring and evaluation or community-based programme implementation will be an advantage;
- 3–5 years of relevant experience in community-based research, public health programmes, implementation research, monitoring and evaluation or related work;
- experience in supervising field teams and conducting community-level data collection and monitoring;
- knowledge of quantitative and qualitative research methods and data collection approaches;
- knowledge of monitoring and evaluation principles and data-quality assurance;
- good understanding of community-based public health programme implementation;
- strong interpersonal, communication and coordination skills;
- good report-writing and documentation skills;
- bility to work effectively with government officials, health workers, community representatives and project staff;
- knowledge of SPSS, STATA, R or other statistical/data-management software will be an advantage;
- proficiency in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint;
- ability and willingness to travel regularly to project field sites.
Comprehensive employment reference checks will be conducted.