Protect our Land, Ascend with Us!

Ascension seeks an experienced Senior Reporting Specialist / Data Analyst to support the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Grant Programs Directorate under the Grant Programmatic, Administration, and Technical Services program.

The ideal candidate is an accomplished analyst who can turn complex grant, programmatic, operational, and financial information into accurate reports, executive-level analyses, performance measures, dashboards, trends, and actionable recommendations. This individual will help FEMA leaders understand program performance, identify emerging risks, respond to high-profile information requests, and use reliable data to strengthen grant program planning and oversight.

This role is best suited for a professional who combines strong analytical judgment with exceptional attention to detail and executive communication skills. The successful candidate must be comfortable working with incomplete or evolving requirements, reconciling information from multiple sources, independently structuring analytical problems, and presenting defensible findings to senior stakeholders.

The position supports FEMA’s broader need for scalable, multidisciplinary teams capable of providing grant program planning, implementation, administration, tracking, reporting, and technical support. Contractor personnel are expected to work independently with minimal direction while collaborating with federal employees, other contractors, program offices, and senior government officials.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Senior Reporting Specialist / Data Analyst leads complex reporting and analytical assignments across FEMA’s grant portfolio. The role supports program evaluation, performance measurement, post-award monitoring, financial and programmatic analysis, data-quality reviews, executive reporting, audit and oversight responses, and the development of dashboard and reporting solutions.

The analyst will organize, validate, integrate, and interpret data from multiple program and financial sources; identify patterns and anomalies; establish defensible analytical methods; and translate findings into concise recommendations for program managers and executive leadership. The position may also support high-profile, time-sensitive data calls requiring rapid collection, verification, analysis, and presentation of information.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead complex programmatic, operational, and financial analyses supporting FEMA grant programs and associated offices.
• Develop program-evaluation documentation, including logic models, performance measures, data-collection templates, risk registers, and analytical frameworks.
• Assess program effectiveness using established performance metrics and explain how findings may affect future planning, policy, resource allocation, and program implementation.
• Analyze program, process, performance, workload, award, recipient, and financial data to identify trends, risks, anomalies, gaps, and improvement opportunities.
• Design executive dashboards, scorecards, recurring reports, visualizations, and decision-support products that communicate program status and performance.
• Establish reporting methodologies, data definitions, business rules, calculation logic, and quality-control procedures.
• Collect and integrate information from databases, spreadsheets, grant systems, program files, surveys, and stakeholder submissions.
• Validate source data for completeness, accuracy, consistency, timeliness, duplication, and logical integrity before analysis or publication.
• Reconcile conflicting information across multiple data sources and document assumptions, limitations, exclusions, and resolution decisions.
• Support programmatic and financial monitoring by updating databases, drafting reports and correspondence, and preparing information for federal review and approval.
• Prepare executive analyses, briefing slides, decision papers, data summaries, talking points, and recommendations for senior leadership.
• Respond to high-profile and time-sensitive data calls from FEMA leadership, oversight organizations, external stakeholders, or other authorized parties.
• Draft data-supported responses to audit, oversight, congressional, Government Accountability Office, Inspector General, or leadership inquiries for government review.
• Create repeatable reporting templates and processes that reduce manual effort and improve consistency across reporting cycles.
• Document data lineage, sources, transformation steps, analytical methods, assumptions, calculations, and report-production procedures.
• Develop data dictionaries, metric definitions, standard operating procedures, user guides, and other reporting documentation.
• Monitor program indicators and emerging trends and elevate material risks, unusual patterns, reporting delays, or data-integrity concerns.
• Recommend corrective actions, process improvements, reporting enhancements, and practical approaches to improve data reliability and program visibility.
• Translate analytical findings into clear business implications and actionable recommendations for government decision-makers.
• Coordinate with program managers, grants management specialists, financial and audit personnel, business analysts, SharePoint specialists, and other stakeholders.
• Facilitate requirements-gathering sessions to define reporting needs, decision questions, performance indicators, data sources, and acceptance criteria.
• Present analytical results and dashboard findings during meetings, working sessions, briefings, and program reviews.
• Maintain organized electronic records, analytical workpapers, report versions, source files, and supporting documentation.
• Perform peer reviews and quality checks of analytical products to ensure that calculations, conclusions, and visualizations are accurate and defensible.
• Deliver reports and analytical products according to established schedules, FEMA standards, task-order requirements, and Ascension’s quality-control procedures.
• Use artificial intelligence tools only when expressly authorized by the FEMA Contracting Officer.
• Protect government-furnished information and refrain from disclosing government data or documents without authorization.