Careers

Ascension LLC is seeking a Power Platform / SharePoint Developer to support a federal data analytics and business intelligence environment for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Military Programs Business Intelligence support effort. This role is ideal for a technically strong, mission-focused developer who can design, configure, maintain, troubleshoot, and enhance Microsoft Power Platform and SharePoint-based solutions that support enterprise reporting, data input, workflow automation, and operational decision-making.

The Power Platform / SharePoint Developer will help sustain and enhance MPBI-related applications, the Current Working Estimate module, the MPBI website, and Smart Form functionality. The role requires a developer who can work across business users, data analysts, business analysts, and project leadership to translate user needs into practical technical solutions. The selected candidate should be comfortable working in an Agile environment, supporting sprint-based work, responding to help desk tickets, maintaining source code, testing functionality, supporting user acceptance testing, and preparing clear technical and user documentation.

This position is important because USACE relies on MPBI products, websites, dashboards, data input tools, and supporting applications to help users understand program conditions, improve visibility, and make timely decisions. The successful candidate will support the reliability, usability, maintainability, and security of these products while helping the team resolve issues quickly and deliver enhancements in alignment with Government-approved priorities.

Day-to-Day Activities

• Design, configure, and enhance Microsoft Power Apps, SharePoint lists, pages, libraries, workflows, and related business applications.
• Support the operation and maintenance of the MPBI home website, Smart Form functionality, and Current Working Estimate module.
• Develop and update application functionality using tools and technologies such as Power Apps, SharePoint, Microsoft SQL, JSON, Angular/RxJS, and related Microsoft 365 services.
• Collaborate with business analysts, data analysts, and Government stakeholders to understand business processes, clarify user needs, and translate requirements into technical solutions.
• Create and maintain technical solutions that allow users to input, manage, validate, and access data used by downstream reporting and analytics teams.
• Troubleshoot and resolve user-submitted tickets, including bug fixes, UI issues, form errors, access issues, and application performance concerns.
• Acknowledge and support ticket resolution in alignment with Government-defined service levels and sprint priorities.
• Conduct unit testing, system testing, and user acceptance testing support for new features, enhancements, and bug fixes.
• Maintain and deliver source code, configuration artifacts, technical notes, and supporting files for MPBI-related products.
• Prepare and update functional requirements, user documentation, training materials, source code documentation, and software architecture documentation.
• Support version control practices and Application Lifecycle Management processes using tools such as Azure DevOps or similar ALM platforms.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, sprint reviews, retrospectives, and status discussions as needed.
• Recommend improvements to application usability, maintainability, performance, workflow efficiency, and data quality.
• Maintain compliance with CIO-approved software versions, cybersecurity expectations, and Government technical standards.
• Coordinate with the Program Manager, Business Analyst, and Data Analyst to escalate issues requiring Government clarification or intervention.

Ascension LLC is seeking a skilled, mission-focused Power BI Data Analyst to support Military Programs Business Intelligence products for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This role is central to helping USACE employees understand program conditions, improve visibility into operational data, and make timely, data-informed decisions.

The ideal candidate is an experienced data analytics professional who can translate business needs into actionable dashboards, reports, dataflows, database queries, and user-facing analytics products. The PWS assigns a significant portion of the workload to the Data Analyst, including Power BI dashboards, Power BI reports, Power BI Dataflows, data quality support, database queries, testing, documentation, and help desk support for bugs and change requests. The role requires a hands-on analyst who can work across business users, technical teams, and Government stakeholders to maintain reliable reporting products and improve how data is accessed, visualized, tested, and explained.

Position Summary

The Power BI Data Analyst will support the full lifecycle of MPBI analytics products, including gathering and analyzing reporting requirements, developing and maintaining Power BI dashboards and reports, supporting data extraction and database query development, testing analytic products, resolving user-submitted tickets, and preparing user guides and documentation. The candidate must be comfortable working in a structured Agile environment where work is planned and tracked through story points, sprint priorities, support tickets, user acceptance testing, and documented deliverables.

This position requires a detail-oriented, technically capable analyst who is comfortable troubleshooting data discrepancies, investigating report performance issues, updating data models, supporting dataflow changes, implementing metrics, and providing clear guidance to users. The successful candidate will bring strong Power BI, SQL, reporting, dashboard, data quality, and documentation skills, along with the judgment to escalate issues when requirements are unclear or when dependencies require Government coordination.

The PWS identifies Power BI Dataflows, Power BI Dashboards, Power BI Reports, Microsoft Azure Data Factory, Crystal Reports, and Web Intelligence as supported technologies under the Data Analytics task area. It also requires acknowledgment of user requests within one business day and resolution of validated requests within the assigned sprint or, for simple tickets, within three business days.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The Power BI Data Analyst will be expected to:

• Develop Power BI dashboards, reports, and visualizations that help USACE stakeholders understand program conditions, trends, performance, and operational needs.
• Retrieve and analyze information from USACE Automated Information Systems and related data sources to support reporting, dashboards, and decision-support products.
• Write and maintain database queries to extract, validate, transform, and prepare data for reporting and visualization.
• Create Power BI Dataflows, data model updates, report modifications, metrics, and data quality improvements in alignment with sprint priorities.
• Convert or support conversion of legacy reports, including Crystal Reports, into Power BI Paginated Reports while maintaining data integrity, functional parity, formatting, parameters, and source logic.
• Collaborate with Government users, business analysts, developers, and project leadership to clarify requirements, document report needs, and confirm acceptance criteria.
• Conduct testing and validation of dashboards, reports, dataflows, data models, and migrated reports before deployment or user acceptance.
• Troubleshoot data discrepancies, performance issues, complex calculations, cross-system integration concerns, and user-reported report defects.
• Respond to help desk tickets, acknowledge user requests within required timeframes, and support bug fixes, change requests, and minor enhancements.
• Prepare user guides, training materials, functional requirements documentation, and clear instructions for MPBI analytics products.
• Support Agile ceremonies, backlog refinement, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and work item updates in the Government-approved Application Lifecycle Management tool, such as Azure DevOps.
• Document analytic logic, report changes, data source updates, testing outcomes, and knowledge transfer materials to reduce dependency on individual team members.
• Maintain professional communication with Government stakeholders while operating within a non-personal services environment.
• Apply data quality practices to identify, explain, and correct inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent, or outdated reporting data.
• Support capacity planning, progress reporting, and sprint workload visibility by maintaining accurate task status and effort estimates.

Ascension LLC is seeking a detail-oriented, organized, and mission-focused Business Analyst to support the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Military Programs Business Intelligence program. This role is ideal for a candidate who can translate stakeholder needs into clear requirements, support Agile delivery teams, help validate report and dashboard functionality, and ensure that technical products are supported by accurate documentation, training materials, and user guidance.

The Business Analyst will serve as a communication bridge between Government users, program managers, data analysts, and application/web developers. The selected candidate should be comfortable working in a remote Agile environment, documenting business and functional requirements, supporting user acceptance testing, managing issue resolution workflows, and helping maintain visibility into sprint progress, documentation gaps, and product updates.

This role is important because MPBI products support Government decision-making through dashboards, reports, data products, and web-enabled tools. The Business Analyst helps ensure that these products are built, updated, tested, documented, and supported in a way that meets user needs and contract requirements.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Business Analyst will support requirements development, documentation, testing, issue tracking, and user support across MPBI products. The role will assist with gathering and analyzing business requirements for new and existing reports, dashboards, websites, and application modules. The analyst will help document functional requirements, support training and user documentation, assist with help desk tickets, and coordinate with developers and data analysts to clarify user needs and validate solutions.

The ideal candidate will be self-driven, responsive, and comfortable working with minimal day-to-day supervision in a non-personal services environment. The candidate should be able to manage competing priorities, anticipate risks or gaps, communicate clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders, and produce clean, well-organized deliverables. Experience with Agile tools such as Azure DevOps, Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Power BI, Power Apps, Excel, Teams, and structured documentation templates is strongly preferred.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

• Gather business and functional requirements from Government stakeholders, product owners, data analysts, developers, and end users.
• Document functional requirements for reports, dashboards, websites, data products, and application modules using approved templates.
• Translate user needs into clear user stories, acceptance criteria, business rules, process steps, and documentation inputs.
• Support Agile sprint planning, backlog refinement, sprint reviews, retrospectives, and task tracking in the Government-approved ALM tool, such as Azure DevOps.
• Track open tasks, bugs, change requests, documentation actions, and user support items through resolution.
• Coordinate with developers and data analysts to clarify requirements, validate assumptions, and confirm that delivered functionality aligns with user expectations.
• Assist with user acceptance testing by preparing test scenarios, documenting results, identifying defects, and supporting issue resolution.
• Review existing documentation to identify gaps, outdated content, missing user guidance, or unclear business process descriptions.
• Create and update user documentation, training materials, functional requirements documents, meeting notes, process summaries, and knowledge transfer materials.
• Support help desk activities by acknowledging user-submitted requests, gathering clarifying information, categorizing simple versus complex issues, and escalating items as needed.
• Prepare meeting agendas, meeting minutes, action item trackers, briefing materials, status inputs, and documentation updates.
• Maintain accurate records of requirements decisions, change requests, user feedback, and product updates.
• Contribute to cross-training and knowledge transfer activities by documenting key processes, lessons learned, procedures, and reference materials.
• Apply strong quality control practices to ensure documentation is clear, complete, accurate, and aligned with Government standards.

Ascension LLC is seeking a detail-oriented, organized, and mission-focused Business Analyst to support the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Military Programs Business Intelligence program. This role is ideal for a candidate who can translate stakeholder needs into clear requirements, support Agile delivery teams, help validate report and dashboard functionality, and ensure that technical products are supported by accurate documentation, training materials, and user guidance.

The Business Analyst will serve as a communication bridge between Government users, program managers, data analysts, and application/web developers. The selected candidate should be comfortable working in a remote Agile environment, documenting business and functional requirements, supporting user acceptance testing, managing issue resolution workflows, and helping maintain visibility into sprint progress, documentation gaps, and product updates.

This role is important because MPBI products support Government decision-making through dashboards, reports, data products, and web-enabled tools. The Business Analyst helps ensure that these products are built, updated, tested, documented, and supported in a way that meets user needs and contract requirements.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Business Analyst will support requirements development, documentation, testing, issue tracking, and user support across MPBI products. The role will assist with gathering and analyzing business requirements for new and existing reports, dashboards, websites, and application modules. The analyst will help document functional requirements, support training and user documentation, assist with help desk tickets, and coordinate with developers and data analysts to clarify user needs and validate solutions.

The ideal candidate will be self-driven, responsive, and comfortable working with minimal day-to-day supervision in a non-personal services environment. The candidate should be able to manage competing priorities, anticipate risks or gaps, communicate clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders, and produce clean, well-organized deliverables. Experience with Agile tools such as Azure DevOps, Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Power BI, Power Apps, Excel, Teams, and structured documentation templates is strongly preferred.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

• Gather business and functional requirements from Government stakeholders, product owners, data analysts, developers, and end users.
• Document functional requirements for reports, dashboards, websites, data products, and application modules using approved templates.
• Translate user needs into clear user stories, acceptance criteria, business rules, process steps, and documentation inputs.
• Support Agile sprint planning, backlog refinement, sprint reviews, retrospectives, and task tracking in the Government-approved ALM tool, such as Azure DevOps.
• Track open tasks, bugs, change requests, documentation actions, and user support items through resolution.
• Coordinate with developers and data analysts to clarify requirements, validate assumptions, and confirm that delivered functionality aligns with user expectations.
• Assist with user acceptance testing by preparing test scenarios, documenting results, identifying defects, and supporting issue resolution.
• Review existing documentation to identify gaps, outdated content, missing user guidance, or unclear business process descriptions.
• Create and update user documentation, training materials, functional requirements documents, meeting notes, process summaries, and knowledge transfer materials.
• Support help desk activities by acknowledging user-submitted requests, gathering clarifying information, categorizing simple versus complex issues, and escalating items as needed.
• Prepare meeting agendas, meeting minutes, action item trackers, briefing materials, status inputs, and documentation updates.
• Maintain accurate records of requirements decisions, change requests, user feedback, and product updates.
• Contribute to cross-training and knowledge transfer activities by documenting key processes, lessons learned, procedures, and reference materials.
• Apply strong quality control practices to ensure documentation is clear, complete, accurate, and aligned with Government standards.

Ascension LLC is seeking a highly experienced Program Manager / Senior Project Manager to support a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Military Programs Business Intelligence (MPBI) Data Analytics Support effort. This position will serve as the primary contractor management lead responsible for overseeing contract performance, coordinating technical and functional workstreams, managing Agile delivery activities, and ensuring that all work is completed on schedule, within scope, within budget, and in accordance with Government expectations.

The ideal candidate is a disciplined, organized, and mission-focused project leader with demonstrated experience managing data analytics, reporting, dashboard, documentation, application support, and business intelligence initiatives in a federal environment. This individual must be comfortable leading remote teams, managing multiple priorities, working in an Agile delivery environment, and maintaining clear communication with Government stakeholders, technical staff, analysts, developers, and end users.

This role is important to the success of the MPBI effort because the Program Manager will help ensure that the contractor team delivers reliable support for MPBI dashboards, reports, data products, documentation, help desk requests, application updates, and recurring program management deliverables. The Program Manager will also be responsible for maintaining delivery discipline across Agile sprints, tracking risks and issues, supporting capacity planning, coordinating knowledge transfer, and ensuring the team remains aligned to the Government’s mission and priorities.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Program Manager will provide overall management, coordination, and quality oversight for contractor personnel supporting USACE MPBI products and services. The role will require hands-on leadership in Agile project management, including sprint planning, backlog management, story point tracking, roadmap maintenance, risk management, capacity planning, and recurring status reporting. The candidate should have experience using Azure DevOps or similar Application Lifecycle Management tools to manage user stories, bugs, tasks, dashboards, velocity, burndown metrics, and release activities.

The successful candidate must be a self-driven and detail-oriented leader who can operate effectively in a remote, non-personal services environment. The Program Manager must be able to anticipate problems, construct practical solutions, manage multiple workstreams, enforce documentation and quality expectations, and support timely communication among Ascension, teaming partners, and Government stakeholders.

The role requires strong understanding of PMBOK-based project management practices, Agile/Scrum methods, technical documentation, risk management, quality control, and federal contract deliverable management. Familiarity with Power BI, Microsoft Power Platform, SharePoint, SQL-based reporting environments, data analytics operations, and help desk support processes is strongly preferred.

Expected Day-to-Day and Recurring Activities

• Serve as the primary contractor point of contact for Ascension, teaming partners, and Government stakeholders.
• Manage overall contract performance, including quality, schedule, budget, scope, staffing, risks, issues, and deliverables.
• Lead Agile project management activities using Azure DevOps or similar ALM tools.
• Maintain Agile boards, user stories, bugs, tasks, sprint backlogs, story point estimates, sprint dashboards, and delivery metrics.
• Coordinate daily standups, sprint planning sessions, sprint reviews, sprint retrospectives, backlog refinement sessions, and quarterly planning activities.
• Prepare and manage the Project Management Plan, Phase-in Plan, Phase-out Transition Plan, Monthly Status Reports, Roadmap, Risk Management Plan, Cross-Training Plan, Capacity Planning Reports, and Knowledge Transfer Documentation.
• Track story point commitments, sprint progress, team capacity, backlog health, work item status, and delivery performance.
• Monitor help desk and support ticket activity to ensure requests are acknowledged and resolved in accordance with Government-defined priorities and sprint expectations.
• Coordinate with Business Analysts, Data Analysts, Developers, and SMEs to ensure requirements, documentation, development, testing, training, and user support activities are properly aligned.
• Review functional requirements, user documentation, training materials, software architecture documentation, source code delivery packages, and meeting materials for completeness and quality.
• Identify risks, issues, dependencies, resource constraints, and mitigation strategies.
• Maintain accurate project records, action item logs, decision logs, risk registers, meeting minutes, agendas, and briefing materials.
• Support cross-training and knowledge transfer activities to reduce skill silos and ensure continuity of operations.
• Ensure work products comply with contract requirements, Government standards, documentation templates, branding requirements, and quality expectations.
• Communicate project status, upcoming priorities, completed deliverables, risks, and recommended corrective actions to internal and external stakeholders.
• Coordinate with Ascension leadership on staffing, performance, customer satisfaction, issue escalation, and delivery readiness.

Ascension LLC is seeking a detail-oriented Data Security / Disclosure Avoidance and Code Documentation Specialist to support the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences evaluation of the next cycle of Regional Educational Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers. This role is designed for a professional who understands secure research data handling, statistical file preparation, code documentation, version control, and disclosure avoidance practices for sensitive education data.

This specialist will help ensure that data files, statistical code, codebooks, documentation, and restricted-use data products are organized, reproducible, secure, and suitable for government review, publication, and potential release through IES’s Restricted Use Data Licensing Program. The role is important because the Statement of Objectives requires data and code supporting analyses to be delivered to the Government, and any data files containing identifying information must be perturbed in accordance with an approved Disclosure Avoidance Plan.

The ideal candidate is highly disciplined, documentation-driven, and comfortable working in a controlled data environment where confidentiality, version control, reproducibility, and compliance are not administrative afterthoughts, but core requirements of the work.

Summary of Contractor Role

The Data Security / Disclosure Avoidance and Code Documentation Specialist will support secure data handling procedures for the evaluation team, including organization of project data files, codebooks, statistical code, naming conventions, version control practices, disclosure avoidance documentation, and preparation of restricted-use data files. The role will coordinate closely with the evaluation lead, quantitative analysts, survey/data collection lead, and project manager to ensure that all data products are complete, traceable, compliant, and ready for IES review.

The Department’s draft SOO states that non-public IES data collected under a pledge of confidentiality must be stored and analyzed on IES’s secure server in a project-specific enclave, and that the IES secure server should also be used for analysis of extant administrative data. The SOO also requires compliance with records management, safeguarding, and non-public information protection requirements, including immediate notification upon discovery of inadvertent or unauthorized disclosures.

This is not envisioned as a senior cybersecurity architect role unless ED adds broader system security responsibilities. Instead, this position is best structured as a technical compliance, secure data handling, disclosure avoidance, and documentation role embedded within the evaluation team.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The contractor will be expected to:

• Maintain secure data handling procedures for project files, analytic datasets, statistical code, documentation, and supporting materials.
• Support compliance with IES secure server requirements, including use of the approved project-specific enclave for non-public IES data.
• Prepare organized data documentation packages, including file inventories, data dictionaries, codebooks, variable naming conventions, processing notes, and version histories.
• Develop and maintain file naming conventions, folder structures, and version control logs to support reproducibility and auditability.
• Review analytic datasets and supporting documentation to identify potential confidentiality, disclosure, or re-identification risks.
• Support preparation of Disclosure Avoidance Plan inputs, including identification of direct identifiers, indirect identifiers, sensitive variables, perturbation needs, suppression rules, masking strategies, or aggregation requirements.
• Coordinate with statisticians and analysts to ensure that disclosure avoidance steps do not compromise analytic validity or interpretation.
• Document data transformations, recoding decisions, cleaning rules, derived variables, and analytic file preparation steps.
• Validate that statistical code aligns with final analytic files, technical reports, tables, exhibits, and appendices.
• Track data sources, data refreshes, file versions, analytic outputs, and final deliverable packages.
• Assist with preparing data and statistical code for Government delivery at the conclusion of the project.
• Support restricted-use data file preparation, ensuring that identifying information is treated in accordance with approved disclosure avoidance procedures.
• Apply quality control checks to confirm that files delivered to IES are complete, readable, well-documented, and organized for future use.
• Maintain documentation necessary to support Federal records management expectations, including metadata and technical documentation needed for the Government to understand and use records and data.
• Flag potential data security, disclosure, version control, or documentation risks to the Project Director and evaluation leadership.
• Ensure AI/data-use restrictions are followed, including prohibition on using IES data, inputs, or outputs to train, fine-tune, improve, or update machine learning models or AI systems.

Ascension LLC is seeking a Knowledge Translation / Dissemination and 508 Products Specialist to support the development of practitioner-friendly communication products for a federal education evaluation effort focused on the next cycle of Regional Educational Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers. This role is designed for a junior to mid-level documentation, communications, accessibility, or media production professional who can translate technical evaluation findings into clear, usable products for non-technical audiences.

This position is important because the Department expects the evaluation to produce not only high-quality technical reports, but also derivative products that help stakeholders understand and use findings for continuous improvement. The SOO specifically calls for derivative products for non-technical audiences that explain findings and their potential application for practitioners and service providers, with products expected to be posted to the IES website and received asynchronously by most users. The SOO also requires public-facing electronic deliverables to meet 508 compliance standards.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Knowledge Translation / Dissemination and 508 Products Specialist will support the evaluation team by converting technical findings, draft report content, statistical summaries, and evaluation insights into accessible dissemination products such as briefs, slide decks, web-ready summaries, visual summaries, one-pagers, outreach materials, and other public-facing products. The role will work under the direction of senior evaluation, research, and communications staff, ensuring that technical meaning is preserved while the final products are clear, visually organized, and usable by federal, state, and education stakeholders.

The ideal candidate will be detail-oriented, visually organized, responsive, and comfortable working with technical content that may be complex, evolving, or still under review. The candidate should be able to apply plain-language principles, document formatting standards, Section 508 accessibility practices, and basic design judgment to ensure that deliverables are professional, consistent, and ready for federal review. The role should be filled by someone who can work independently on defined assignments, accept reviewer feedback, manage version control, and support fast-turn revisions without losing quality.

This role aligns well to Ascension’s Documentation/Media Specialist I labor category, which supports production, editing, formatting, layout design, proofreading, file conversion, internal publishing, and preparation of communication products under supervision.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

• Translate technical evaluation findings into plain-language content for practitioner, program, and stakeholder audiences.
• Develop derivative products such as briefs, slide decks, one-pagers, fact sheets, web summaries, visuals, outreach materials, and presentation-ready content.
• Format evaluation reports, appendices, tables, figures, slide decks, and dissemination materials in accordance with federal style and accessibility expectations.
• Apply Section 508 accessibility practices to Word, PowerPoint, PDF, and web-ready content, including headings, alt text, reading order, table structure, color contrast, link text, and accessible formatting.
• Support technical report formatting, quality checks, and final production activities before government review, peer review, or public dissemination.
• Edit content for clarity, readability, consistency, grammar, punctuation, and alignment with approved messaging.
• Create visual summaries, charts, diagrams, timelines, process graphics, or summary callout boxes using approved data and evaluation team direction.
• Coordinate version control across draft, revised, and final deliverables.
• Prepare clean files for client review, internal quality control, and final submission.
• Assist with web-ready dissemination products intended for posting to the IES website.
• Incorporate comments from the evaluation team, COR/IES staff, peer review feedback, and internal quality reviewers.
• Maintain organized product trackers, file naming conventions, and product status updates.
• Collaborate with evaluation staff, data analysts, technical writers, and subject matter experts to ensure product accuracy.
• Support awareness and use of dissemination products by assisting with outreach materials, short summaries, and presentation assets.

Ascension LLC is seeking a Technical Working Group Coordinator / Meeting Facilitation Specialist to support the planning, coordination, and documentation of a Technical Working Group for a federal education evaluation effort focused on the next cycle of Regional Educational Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers. The Department anticipates using a technical working group of national experts in evaluation and/or relevant content areas to provide input on the quality, usefulness, and relevance of the evaluation and related derivative products. The requirement notes that the working group may provide input asynchronously and/or through virtual panel meetings, and that the contractor will be responsible for virtual meeting logistics, agendas, materials, allowable honoraria, and post-meeting proceedings or documentation.

This role is ideal for a detail-oriented meeting coordinator and facilitation professional who understands how to organize expert advisory groups, manage virtual panel logistics, prepare clean and professional meeting materials, track expert input, and produce accurate proceedings and action-item documentation. The position does not require a senior program manager. It requires a highly organized, responsive, and polished coordinator who can support technical experts, federal staff, and project leadership while keeping the working group operating smoothly across an annual engagement cycle.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Technical Working Group Coordinator / Meeting Facilitation Specialist will support Ascension’s project team by coordinating the onboarding, scheduling, engagement, and documentation activities associated with an up to 8-member Technical Working Group. The role will help ensure that technical experts are engaged within the required timeframe, prepared to provide meaningful input, and supported through well-run virtual meetings and structured asynchronous review processes.

The selected contractor will prepare agendas, pre-read materials, meeting packets, logistics communications, attendance records, meeting notes, action item trackers, expert input trackers, honoraria coordination materials, and proceedings. The role will also support recurring project coordination with Ascension’s evaluation, data, and reporting teams to ensure technical working group input is captured, organized, and routed to the appropriate workstream leads.

The ideal candidate will be comfortable working in a federal consulting environment, managing multiple deadlines, communicating professionally with senior subject matter experts, maintaining version control, and producing accurate documentation. The candidate should be self-driven, organized, proactive, and able to anticipate logistical issues before they disrupt expert engagement or project delivery.

Expected Day-to-Day / Periodic Activities

The day-to-day activities for this role will vary by project phase and annual working group cycle. Anticipated responsibilities include:

• Coordinate onboarding activities for up to 8 Technical Working Group members, including welcome communications, meeting expectations, availability collection, and administrative tracking.
• Schedule virtual panel meetings, planning sessions, preparatory calls, and asynchronous review windows with technical experts, ED/IES staff, and Ascension project leadership.
• Prepare meeting agendas, run-of-show documents, pre-read packets, presentation materials, discussion guides, and logistics instructions.
• Manage virtual meeting logistics using Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, or similar platforms, including calendar invitations, access links, participant tracking, technical support, and meeting setup.
• Moderate administrative portions of virtual meetings, including opening logistics, timekeeping, transition cues, attendance tracking, and coordination of participant questions.
• Capture meeting notes, expert comments, decisions, recommendations, action items, risks, and follow-up needs.
• Develop post-meeting proceedings, meeting summaries, action item logs, and expert input trackers that can be used by the evaluation and reporting teams.
• Track asynchronous expert input, comments on draft materials, review status, due dates, and unresolved issues.
• Coordinate honoraria-related documentation and tracking in accordance with project direction and applicable federal guidance, noting that the requirement caps technical working group honoraria at the GS-15 Step 10 level.
• Maintain organized project files, version-controlled meeting materials, distribution lists, and documentation repositories.
• Support biweekly or milestone-based coordination with Ascension’s project team to confirm upcoming working group needs, schedule dependencies, and deliverable deadlines.
• Ensure all meeting materials and derivative documentation are professional, accessible, and suitable for federal review.
• Identify scheduling conflicts, missing inputs, late responses, and other risks that could affect working group engagement.
• Communicate professionally with senior experts, federal staff, and project stakeholders in a manner that reflects Ascension’s standards for responsiveness, accuracy, and client service.

Tools and Processes Used

The role is expected to use or be comfortable learning the following tools and processes:

• Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, or Webex for virtual meeting coordination
• Microsoft Outlook for scheduling and calendar management
• Microsoft Word and PowerPoint for agendas, proceedings, meeting materials, and briefing support
• Microsoft Excel or SharePoint Lists for tracking action items, expert input, honoraria status, attendance, and deliverable progress
• Microsoft SharePoint or Teams for file management, version control, and collaboration
• Adobe Acrobat for PDF preparation and final meeting packets
• Accessibility tools in Microsoft Office and Adobe for Section 508-aware document preparation
• Structured meeting facilitation practices, including agendas, run-of-show documents, decision logs, and action item tracking
• Federal-style documentation practices for meeting records, proceedings, and stakeholder input summaries

Ascension LLC is seeking a part-time Education / Evidence-Use Subject Matter Expert to support a federal education evaluation focused on the next cycle of Regional Educational Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers. This role is intended for a senior advisor with strong knowledge of education technical assistance, evidence use in state and local education systems, state education agency priorities, and the operating models of federally funded education support programs.

The ideal candidate will help the evaluation team interpret prior REL and Comprehensive Center outcomes, assess how state priorities and Learning Agendas inform technical assistance, and review evaluation products for credibility, usefulness, and alignment with the Department’s goals. The Department’s draft SOO emphasizes the need for expertise in evaluation methods, evidence use, and relevant content areas, including REL and Comprehensive Center program context.

This is not a full-time delivery role. It is a targeted SME position designed to close Ascension’s education content-area gap and strengthen the technical quality of evaluation findings, instruments, and stakeholder-facing products.

Summary of Contractor Role

The Education / Evidence-Use SME will provide specialized advisory support to Ascension’s evaluation team as it assesses prior-cycle outcomes and the evolving REL/Comprehensive Center model. The role will focus on ensuring that evaluation questions, instruments, findings, and derivative products reflect the realities of state education systems, technical assistance delivery, evidence-use practices, and capacity-building support.

The SME should bring practical experience working with or supporting SEAs, LEAs, RELs, Comprehensive Centers, education technical assistance providers, or education research-to-practice initiatives. The successful candidate must be able to review complex evaluation materials, identify whether findings are actionable for policymakers and practitioners, and help translate technical results into useful insights for federal, state, and education-sector stakeholders.

This role requires a thoughtful, detail-oriented professional who can work independently in a virtual consulting environment, provide concise written recommendations, and collaborate with evaluators, analysts, statisticians, survey leads, and project leadership. The SME must be comfortable reviewing interview protocols, survey instruments, analysis plans, technical reports, derivative products, briefing materials, and Technical Working Group inputs.

Key Role Alignment to the Requirement

This position supports the following requirement areas:

Task 2: Prior REL/CC Outcomes Interpretation
The SME will help interpret long-term objectives and outcomes from prior REL and Comprehensive Center cycles, including whether technical assistance and evidence-use activities produced meaningful value for states and recipients.

Task 3: Collaboration, State Priorities, Learning Agendas, and Students with Greatest Need
The SME will advise on how to evaluate collaboration between RELs and Comprehensive Centers, whether state priorities and Learning Agendas drive services, and whether Centers address students with the greatest need.

Task 6: Technical Working Group Support
The SME may help prepare materials for Technical Working Group review, interpret expert feedback, and support follow-up revisions to ensure evaluation and derivative products are high-quality, useful, and technically credible. The SOO anticipates a Technical Working Group of national experts in evaluation and/or relevant content areas, with annual engagement during the contract.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

• Review evaluation questions, analysis plans, data collection instruments, and protocols for alignment with REL/CC program goals, education technical assistance practice, and evidence-use concepts.
• Advise the project team on how RELs and Comprehensive Centers support SEAs, LEAs, schools, and other recipients through capacity-building, evidence-use, and technical assistance activities.
• Interpret prior-cycle outcomes and help distinguish between short-term outputs, intermediate outcomes, and long-term changes in recipient practice or capacity.
• Assess whether proposed measures adequately capture collaboration, streamlined access to services, alignment with state priorities, service usefulness, and recipient satisfaction.
• Validate assumptions related to state Learning Agendas, state-identified priorities, statutory priorities, and support for students with the greatest need.
• Recommend refinements to survey items, interview questions, focus group protocols, and document review templates to improve clarity, usefulness, and respondent burden.
• Review draft technical findings to ensure interpretations are grounded, practical, and not overstated.
• Contribute to derivative products intended for non-technical audiences, including briefs, summaries, slide decks, or practitioner-facing materials.
• Support Technical Working Group preparation by reviewing agendas, background materials, discussion prompts, and post-meeting summaries.
• Identify implications of findings for federal program improvement, state education agencies, technical assistance providers, and institutional policymakers.
• Collaborate with evaluation leads, statisticians, qualitative analysts, survey/data collection staff, and project management personnel in a remote team environment.
• Provide concise written comments, tracked edits, annotated feedback, and recommendation memos as needed.

Ascension LLC is a small, woman-owned, SBA-certified EDWOSB and SDB management consulting and technology services firm supporting federal, state, and commercial clients in program management, data analytics, business process improvement, performance reporting, and technology-enabled operations support. Ascension’s work includes data cleansing, analytics, visualization, KPI development, dashboard development, reporting, SharePoint/Power Platform support, and performance measurement for federal mission support environments. Ascension’s prior work includes developing dashboards, scorecards, KPIs, reports, data visualizations, and performance analytics to help federal leaders interpret trends, manage program performance, and make evidence-informed decisions.

Position Summary

Ascension is seeking a Data Analyst / Performance Measurement Analyst to support a federal education evaluation effort focused on the next cycle of Regional Educational Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers. This role will support extant data analysis, baseline and change-over-time tracking, technical report exhibits, derivative product visuals, and data/code documentation.

The ideal candidate is a highly organized, detail-oriented analyst who can clean and integrate performance measurement data, create repeatable analytic files, develop tables and figures, and translate complex findings into clear visuals and narrative-ready insights. This is not intended to be a senior evaluation methodology ownership role. Instead, the position is best suited for an experienced data analyst who can work under the direction of the evaluation lead, senior statistician, and/or project director to produce reliable analysis outputs, support annual or periodic reporting cycles, and help ensure data products are accurate, reproducible, and useful for decision-making.

This role aligns closely with Ascension’s Business Data Analyst III labor category, which includes data analysis, entry, aggregation, reporting, dashboard development, KPI briefings, decision-support models, and visual narratives. Ascension’s GSA MAS schedule lists Business Data Analyst III with a bachelor’s degree and 6 years of experience, with a Year 5 ceiling rate of $122.15/hour.

Role Purpose

The Data Analyst / Performance Measurement Analyst will help the project team turn performance measurement data, administrative data, survey data, and evaluation outputs into clean analytic datasets, usable tables, visual exhibits, dashboards, and supporting documentation. The position will support tasks associated with extant data analysis, baseline measurement, change-over-time tracking, technical report exhibits, derivative product data visuals, and data/code support.

The analyst will help ensure that project leadership has timely, accurate, and well-documented data products to support technical reports, derivative products, briefings, annual analysis cycles, and continuous improvement findings. This role is critical because the customer is seeking regular, actionable results that can be used for program improvement, not only end-of-cycle reporting.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The Data Analyst / Performance Measurement Analyst will be expected to:

• Clean extant performance measurement data from multiple sources, including APRs, AERs, stakeholder feedback surveys, administrative files, tracking spreadsheets, and other evaluation-related datasets.
• Integrate data from multiple sources into structured analytic files that support baseline analysis, longitudinal tracking, subgroup comparisons, and recurring annual analyses.
• Develop data dictionaries, variable crosswalks, file inventories, and documentation to support reproducibility and quality assurance.
• Create tables, charts, figures, dashboard views, and visual exhibits for technical reports, derivative products, briefings, and stakeholder-facing materials.
• Support baseline and change-over-time analyses to help the evaluation team assess trends in satisfaction, service access, collaboration, service alignment, client experience, and performance outcomes.
• Apply established analytic specifications provided by the senior statistician, evaluation methodologist, or project director.
• Conduct quality checks on data files, calculations, figures, and report exhibits to identify missing values, outliers, inconsistencies, duplicate records, and logic errors.
• Document analytic decisions, data transformations, assumptions, and limitations in a clear and audit-ready manner.
• Prepare charts and exhibits that communicate findings in plain language for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Maintain organized project folders, version-controlled analytic files, code files, and working datasets in accordance with project data management requirements.
• Support data/code deliverables by preparing final datasets, statistical code, syntax files, output files, and documentation for government review.
• Collaborate with evaluation, research, data collection, and reporting staff to ensure that data products align with research questions, deliverable requirements, and reporting timelines.
• Assist with data visualizations for derivative products, including one-pagers, briefing visuals, dashboards, trend summaries, and public-facing materials.
• Participate in internal quality control reviews to confirm that tables, figures, and narrative findings are traceable to source data.
• Use Microsoft Excel, Power BI, Tableau, R, SAS, SPSS, Stata, Python, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and/or secure federal data environments, as applicable to the project.

Ascension LLC is seeking a Research Analyst / Qualitative Analyst to support a Department of Education evaluation of the next cycle of Regional Educational Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers. This role will help assess how RELs and Comprehensive Centers operated in prior cycles, how they supported state needs, and how future program models may improve collaboration, access to services, service alignment, and stakeholder satisfaction. The Department’s draft SOO emphasizes a single evaluation of both programs, more frequent data collection, regular actionable findings, technical reports, derivative products, and support for continuous program improvement.

This position is ideal for a mid-level qualitative research professional who can conduct structured document reviews, support interviews and focus groups, code and synthesize qualitative data, identify themes across multiple sources, and translate findings into clear contributions for technical reports, appendices, and stakeholder-facing products.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Research Analyst / Qualitative Analyst will support Tasks 2, 3, and 4 of the evaluation effort, including prior-cycle assessment, interview and focus group analysis, survey and formative analysis support, and findings development. The analyst will work under the direction of the Evaluation Lead and Senior Statistician / Quantitative Evaluation Analyst to ensure qualitative findings are methodologically sound, well documented, and aligned to the evaluation’s research questions.

The ideal candidate is detail-oriented, organized, and comfortable working in a structured research environment where documentation quality, confidentiality, analytic rigor, and responsiveness matter. The candidate should be able to review large volumes of program documentation, extract relevant evidence, apply coding frameworks, support qualitative data collection, and develop concise summaries that connect stakeholder feedback to evaluation questions. Because the evaluation may include primary data collection, extant data review, annual reporting, technical reports, derivative products, and OMB clearance materials, this role requires strong writing, synthesis, and research operations skills.

The analyst should be comfortable using tools and processes such as interview protocols, focus group guides, codebooks, document review matrices, qualitative analysis software, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, survey platforms, and secure data handling procedures. Staff who access non-public IES data may be required to obtain and maintain necessary security clearances and use IES’s secure server environment.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

• Review prior-cycle REL and Comprehensive Center documents, reports, performance materials, service plans, stakeholder feedback, and related evaluation artifacts.
• Extract relevant evidence from program documents and organize findings in structured document review matrices.
• Support interview and focus group planning by reviewing protocols, preparing background materials, and coordinating with the evaluation team.
• Conduct or support semi-structured interviews, focus groups, listening sessions, and stakeholder discussions, as appropriate.
• Code interview notes, transcripts, open-ended survey responses, and document excerpts using approved qualitative coding frameworks.
• Identify recurring themes, patterns, barriers, facilitators, and evidence-use findings across stakeholder groups and program sources.
• Compare qualitative findings across RELs, Comprehensive Centers, client types, states, service models, and time periods.
• Synthesize qualitative evidence into concise analytic memos, findings tables, briefing inputs, and technical appendix content.
• Crosswalk qualitative findings to evaluation research questions, including collaboration, service access, streamlined planning, alignment with state priorities, and perceived outcomes.
• Support formative analysis by helping identify emerging issues that may inform timely program improvement.
• Contribute to technical reports, derivative products, and stakeholder-facing materials by translating qualitative findings into clear, accurate narrative content.
• Document analytic decisions, coding notes, source references, and assumptions to support quality assurance and reproducibility.
• Coordinate with quantitative analysts to integrate qualitative findings with survey, performance, administrative, or extant data.
• Maintain confidentiality of non-public information and follow all project data management, records management, and secure server procedures.
• Participate in recurring team meetings, bi-weekly COR meeting preparation, internal analytic reviews, and milestone briefings as needed.

Ascension LLC is seeking a Data Collection / Survey and OMB Clearance Lead to support a federal education evaluation effort focused on the next cycle of Regional Educational Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers. This role is responsible for helping design practical, compliant, and mission-aligned data collection instruments and supporting the development of the associated OMB clearance package.

This position is ideal for a research operations, survey development, or evaluation support professional who understands how to translate evaluation questions into usable instruments, outreach materials, burden estimates, participation strategies, and documentation suitable for federal review. The selected contractor will help ensure that proposed primary data collection activities are clear, feasible, minimally burdensome, and aligned to the Department’s need for timely, actionable findings.

The Department anticipates that the evaluation may include primary data collection, incentives to encourage study participation, and regular information releases to support continuous program improvement. The Draft Statement of Objectives also specifically requires the development of a Part 2 analysis plan and data collection instruments, including a full OMB clearance package with instruments, Supporting Statements A and B, outreach materials, and Federal Register notices.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Data Collection / Survey and OMB Clearance Lead will support the evaluation team by developing, refining, and documenting data collection instruments and clearance materials needed to evaluate how RELs and Comprehensive Centers collaborate, simplify client access to services, align services with state priorities, support students with the greatest need, and produce outcomes that clients can connect to long-term objectives.

This role requires a detail-oriented professional who can work independently, organize complex documentation, and support a highly technical evaluation team without needing daily supervision. The ideal candidate will bring strong writing, survey design, coordination, and federal documentation skills. Prior OMB clearance experience is strongly preferred, but the role does not need to be priced at a senior SME level unless the client explicitly requires prior OMB clearance leadership.

The contractor will help Ascension and its evaluation partners convert evaluation requirements into practical instruments, respondent communications, participation strategies, and clearance-ready documentation. This includes supporting burden documentation, outreach language, respondent flow, review cycles, version control, and readiness for fielding.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The selected contractor will be expected to:

• Develop draft data collection instruments aligned to approved research questions, evaluation constructs, and analysis needs.
• Translate evaluation topics into survey, interview, focus group, or feedback questions that are clear, unbiased, accessible, and appropriate for education stakeholders.
• Support the development of the Part 2 analysis plan by documenting how proposed instruments will generate evidence needed to answer the Department’s research questions.
• Prepare OMB clearance package components, including draft instruments, Supporting Statement A, Supporting Statement B, burden estimates, outreach materials, and supporting attachments.
• Draft respondent-facing communications, including invitation language, reminder language, participation instructions, and plain-language descriptions of the study purpose.
• Coordinate internal reviews of instruments and clearance materials with the evaluation lead, quantitative analysts, qualitative researchers, subject matter experts, and project management staff.
• Document respondent universe, sampling assumptions, data collection procedures, response rate assumptions, incentive strategy, burden estimates, and data quality controls.
• Review instruments for clarity, accessibility, sequencing, skip logic, estimated completion time, and alignment to analysis objectives.
• Support development of Federal Register notice content and related documentation, as directed by the evaluation team.
• Maintain version control for instruments, clearance documents, outreach materials, and review comments.
• Track action items, reviewer feedback, and revision decisions across multiple OMB package components.
• Coordinate fielding readiness activities, including instrument finalization, respondent list preparation assumptions, contact protocols, reminder cadence, and quality checks.
• Collaborate with data analysts to ensure survey items and data collection instruments support planned descriptive, trend, subgroup, and comparative analyses.
• Apply plain-language and Section 508 considerations to respondent materials and public-facing documentation.
• Support secure data handling procedures consistent with federal privacy, confidentiality, and records management expectations.
• Flag risks related to instrument burden, respondent fatigue, unclear constructs, incomplete sampling assumptions, or documentation gaps that could delay clearance or fielding.

Ascension LLC is seeking a Senior Statistician / Quantitative Evaluation Analyst to support a U.S. Department of Education evaluation focused on the next cycle of Regional Educational Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers. This role is designed for a highly experienced quantitative analyst who can develop and execute rigorous statistical analysis strategies, analyze extant performance data, support repeated data collection, produce reproducible statistical code, and contribute to high-quality technical reports suitable for IES review and potential public release.

The ideal candidate brings advanced statistical analysis experience in education, public policy, human services, program evaluation, or federally funded technical assistance programs. This position is critical to helping the evaluation team assess prior-cycle outcomes, analyze Annual Performance Reports, Annual Evaluation Reports, stakeholder survey data, and other extant datasets, and support future-cycle repeated data collection and summative analysis. The Department anticipates that this evaluation may use primary data collection, statistical analysis of extant data, or both, and that findings will be used for timely program improvement.

This is not an executive management role. It is a senior technical role requiring strong independent judgment, statistical rigor, reproducible analysis practices, and the ability to translate complex quantitative findings into clear, defensible conclusions for technical reports, derivative products, and stakeholder-facing briefings.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Senior Statistician / Quantitative Evaluation Analyst will support Tasks 2, 3, 4, and 8 of the anticipated evaluation effort, including prior-cycle outcomes analysis, repeated data collection and summative analysis, technical reporting, and preparation of data files and statistical code. The analyst will work closely with the Project Director, Principal Evaluation Lead, qualitative researchers, data collection staff, and technical report writers to ensure the evaluation design, analysis methods, statistical assumptions, and resulting findings are methodologically sound and clearly documented.

The role requires a detail-oriented and self-driven professional who can work in an ambiguous federal evaluation environment, identify analytic limitations, recommend practical solutions, and maintain the documentation needed for peer review, reproducibility, and potential restricted-use data release. The contractor should be comfortable analyzing administrative and survey datasets, developing analysis plans, supporting sampling and power considerations where applicable, and advising on disclosure avoidance planning for data files that may contain identifying information.

The Department expects technical reports to include a clear description of research questions, evaluation purpose, methods, analysis, and findings. These reports must be of high technical quality and suitable for review in a top-tier peer-reviewed journal or equivalent. The analyst will therefore play a central role in ensuring that statistical analyses are accurate, transparent, reproducible, and aligned with IES standards.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The Senior Statistician / Quantitative Evaluation Analyst will be expected to:

• Develop statistical analysis strategies aligned to the evaluation’s research questions, available data sources, and reporting timelines.
• Review extant performance data, including APRs, AERs, stakeholder feedback surveys, and related administrative datasets, to determine analytic usability, completeness, and limitations.
• Assess prior-cycle REL and Comprehensive Center outcomes using available quantitative indicators and defensible statistical methods.
• Support repeated data collection planning for Part 2 of the evaluation, including recommendations related to survey design, sampling, response rate assumptions, subgroup analysis, and measurement consistency over time.
• Analyze quantitative survey, administrative, and performance measurement data to identify patterns, trends, differences over time, and evidence of program model implementation.
• Conduct descriptive, inferential, longitudinal, or quasi-experimental analyses as appropriate to the available data and approved evaluation design.
• Prepare tables, figures, and statistical summaries that clearly communicate findings for technical reports and non-technical derivative products.
• Document analytic decisions, data transformations, variable construction, assumptions, limitations, and quality checks in a clear and reproducible manner.
• Produce reproducible statistical code using approved software such as R, Stata, SAS, Python, or equivalent tools, depending on project and customer requirements.
• Perform quality assurance checks on statistical outputs, syntax, tables, figures, and report language to ensure accuracy and consistency.
• Support development of the Part 2 analysis plan, including recommended measures, analytic models, data sources, timing, and anticipated limitations.
• Advise the evaluation team on sampling, weighting, missing data, nonresponse, measurement error, and statistical power considerations where applicable.
• Contribute technical language for methods sections, appendices, analysis plans, data documentation, and peer review responses.
• Support preparation of de-identified data files and statistical code for government delivery at project closeout.
• Coordinate with the team on disclosure avoidance planning to reduce the risk of inadvertent disclosure in public-use or restricted-use files.
• Maintain compliance with IES data handling requirements, including secure-server use and restrictions on the use of IES data for machine learning or AI model training. The draft SOO requires non-public IES data to be stored and analyzed on IES’s secure server and prohibits use of IES data, inputs, or outputs to train, fine-tune, improve, or update AI systems.
• Participate in project meetings, technical working group preparation, milestone briefings, and internal quality reviews as needed.

Ascension LLC is seeking a Principal Evaluation Lead / Senior Evaluation Methodologist to serve as the intellectual and methodological lead for a high-visibility federal education evaluation supporting the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. This role will lead the design of rigorous evaluation approaches for the next cycle of Regional Educational Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers, including assessment of prior-cycle outcomes, formative and summative evaluation planning, technical reporting, and development of analytic frameworks that can withstand IES review.

This position is ideal for a senior evaluation professional with deep expertise in education program evaluation, research design, mixed-methods evaluation, statistical analysis, extant data strategy, technical report development, and federal research standards. The selected candidate must be capable of translating complex research questions into defensible evaluation methods, guiding analytic strategy, overseeing interpretation of findings, and ensuring that reports are suitable for federal review and potential publication.

The Department seeks a single evaluation of both the REL and Comprehensive Centers programs to understand how the programs operate separately and together, how states experience services, and whether the programs are improving satisfaction and alignment with state needs. The SOO also requires the evaluation to produce more frequent and actionable findings for timely program improvement, not merely end-of-cycle reporting.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Principal Evaluation Lead / Senior Evaluation Methodologist will provide senior-level leadership across evaluation design, analytic planning, data collection strategy, technical quality assurance, and reporting. The role will be responsible for shaping the methodological approach for Task 2, Task 3 Part 2 formative and summative evaluation, Task 4 technical reports, and Task 7 Part 2 analysis plans and instruments.

The ideal candidate will bring a disciplined, research-forward mindset and the ability to operate in an environment where findings must be actionable, defensible, and useful to federal decision-makers. This role requires someone who can balance technical rigor with practical program improvement needs, guide a multidisciplinary team, and produce work products that meet IES expectations for quality, objectivity, and transparency.

The SOO states that technical reports must clearly articulate research questions, describe evaluation purpose, methods, and findings, and be of the highest technical quality, suitable for review in a top-tier peer-reviewed journal or equivalent. Reports may be published by IES and are expected to undergo multiple rounds of government and peer review.

The role will also support the development of the Part 2 analysis plan and data collection instruments, including an OMB clearance package with instruments, Supporting Statements A and B, outreach materials, and Federal Register notices.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The selected contractor will be expected to:

• Lead the overall evaluation design for prior-cycle outcomes assessment and the option-period formative and summative evaluation.
• Translate IES research questions into rigorous evaluation methods, analytic frameworks, data collection strategies, and defensible study logic.
• Develop methodological approaches for assessing REL and Comprehensive Center long-term objectives, short-term outcomes, collaboration, service alignment, state priority alignment, and recipient perceptions.
• Guide the use of extant performance data, including APRs, AERs, stakeholder feedback surveys, administrative data, and other government-provided performance measurement sources.
• Determine when primary data collection, extant data analysis, or mixed-methods approaches are needed to answer the evaluation questions.
• Design formative and summative evaluation approaches that support annual or recurring actionable findings for continuous program improvement.
• Oversee the development of the Part 2 analysis plan, including research questions, data sources, sampling logic, analytic methods, limitations, and reporting strategy.
• Lead or provide senior review of OMB clearance materials, including instruments, Supporting Statements A and B, outreach materials, burden assumptions, and Federal Register notice content.
• Develop survey, interview, focus group, or other data collection instruments aligned to IES research questions and federal data collection standards.
• Review analytic outputs, statistical results, qualitative findings, and mixed-methods syntheses for methodological soundness and interpretive accuracy.
• Ensure findings are presented objectively, supported by evidence, and appropriate for federal program improvement and policy consideration.
• Provide senior technical direction to analysts, data specialists, report writers, and subject matter experts.
• Engage with a Technical Working Group by preparing methodological materials, framing review questions, integrating expert feedback, and documenting resulting changes.
• Support biweekly client meetings, milestone briefings, technical discussions, and written responses to COR or IES feedback.
• Prepare technical report sections covering evaluation design, methodology, limitations, analysis, findings, conclusions, and implications.
• Review draft technical reports for quality, consistency, logic, and readiness for government and peer review.
• Apply disclosure avoidance, confidentiality, and secure data handling expectations when working with non-public IES data.
• Coordinate with project leadership to identify risks related to data quality, response rates, analytic feasibility, schedule, and reporting dependencies.
• Recommend methodological adjustments that maintain rigor while improving timeliness, usability, and cost effectiveness.
• Document assumptions, limitations, decision rules, and analytic choices in a clear and auditable manner.

Ascension LLC is seeking a Project Director / Evaluation Program Manager to serve as the overall contract lead for a federal education evaluation effort supporting the U.S. Department of Education. This role will lead project governance, schedule management, deliverable oversight, quality control, client communications, staffing coordination, and risk management for a multi-workstream evaluation of the next cycle of Regional Educational Laboratories and Comprehensive Centers.

The ideal candidate is a disciplined, client-facing program manager who understands federal consulting, evaluation project delivery, education research environments, and the importance of producing technically sound, actionable deliverables for government stakeholders. This position is critical to ensuring the evaluation is executed on time, within scope, and in alignment with IES expectations for technical quality, secure data handling, and continuous program improvement.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Project Director / Evaluation Program Manager will manage the overall performance of the contract, coordinate across evaluation, research, data, OMB clearance, technical writing, dissemination, security, and subject matter expert workstreams, and serve as the primary point of coordination with Ascension leadership and the federal client. The role requires a detail-oriented, organized, and proactive leader who can anticipate risks, manage ambiguity, support high-quality technical deliverables, and maintain clear communication across a distributed team.

The successful candidate should be comfortable managing peer review response cycles, coordinating biweekly COR meetings, preparing monthly progress reports, maintaining integrated project schedules, and ensuring that all deliverables are reviewed and submitted in accordance with contract expectations. This role is not merely administrative. It requires strong judgment, evaluation literacy, and the ability to keep technical experts aligned around a common delivery plan.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

• Lead overall project execution, including scope, schedule, budget, staffing, risks, deliverables, and client communications.
• Develop and maintain the project management plan, integrated master schedule, risk register, deliverable tracker, and action item log.
• Coordinate biweekly COR meetings, internal team meetings, technical work sessions, and milestone briefings.
• Prepare monthly progress reports documenting accomplishments, risks, issues, planned activities, and upcoming deliverables.
• Monitor evaluation workstreams to ensure timely completion of technical reports, derivative products, analysis plans, data collection instruments, and required supporting materials.
• Coordinate quality control reviews for all client-facing deliverables before submission.
• Manage peer review response cycles, including assignment of revisions, adjudication of comments, and tracking of changes through final submission.
• Facilitate coordination among evaluation methodologists, statisticians, data analysts, survey/OMB specialists, education subject matter experts, technical writers, and TWG support staff.
• Ensure staff understand data security, confidentiality, records management, and IES secure server expectations.
• Escalate performance, schedule, quality, staffing, or compliance risks to Ascension leadership before they affect contract delivery.
• Support contract transition, onboarding, and closeout activities as needed.