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.

Ascension LLC is seeking a highly organized, detail-oriented Project Coordination Specialist to support a website redesign and build engagement for Maryland Sea Grant, part of the University System of Maryland. This role will help keep the project organized, documented, and moving across discovery, design review, Drupal site buildout, content migration coordination, testing, training, launch readiness, and post-launch support.

The ideal candidate is a disciplined project support professional who understands how to manage meeting logistics, agendas, notes, action items, decision logs, schedule coordination, risk and issue tracking, and weekly status report inputs. This position is important because the client expects an iterative, collaborative design process with regular communication, milestone reviews, and structured coordination among the contractor team and Maryland Sea Grant stakeholders. The RFP specifically requires at least weekly communication, weekly status reports, regular videoconferences, standard agendas, action item review, and issue discussion.

This is a strong fit for a candidate who enjoys working behind the scenes to create clarity, follow-through, and accountability across a fast-moving website modernization project.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Project Coordination Specialist will provide part-time coordination support to Ascension’s project team and the client-facing Project Manager. The role will focus on organizing meetings, preparing agendas, documenting decisions, tracking action items, maintaining project logs, coordinating schedules, collecting weekly status inputs, and helping ensure that the team stays aligned with the project timeline and deliverables.

This role does not require the candidate to be a Drupal developer, UX designer, or technical architect. However, the candidate should be comfortable supporting technology, website, or digital transformation projects and should understand how to coordinate across technical and non-technical stakeholders. The project includes website discovery, information architecture discussions, wireframe and template reviews, content migration planning, accessibility and quality assurance coordination, user training, launch preparation, and six months of post-launch maintenance support.

The ideal candidate will be self-driven, proactive, responsive, and comfortable working in an environment where requirements evolve through client feedback. This person must be able to anticipate coordination needs, identify follow-up items, organize project documentation, and support multiple workstreams without losing track of details.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The Project Coordination Specialist will:

• Coordinate recurring weekly project meetings, design review sessions, content migration check-ins, training planning meetings, and launch readiness discussions.
• Prepare meeting agendas using a standard format that captures discussion topics, decisions needed, open risks, action items, and upcoming milestones.
• Document meeting notes, action items, decision points, risks, issues, dependencies, and client feedback in a clear and organized manner.
• Maintain action item logs, decision logs, risk and issue trackers, meeting calendars, project contact lists, and document repositories.
• Track upcoming project milestones, deliverables, review cycles, and due dates across discovery, design, build, content migration, testing, training, and support phases.
• Collect status updates from project team members, including design, development, content migration, QA/testing, accessibility, training, and project management contributors.
• Compile weekly status report inputs for the Project Manager, including accomplishments, upcoming activities, risks/issues, decisions needed, and schedule impacts.
• Support coordination of up to three rounds of client review and revision for wireframes, website designs, templates, and other project deliverables.
• Coordinate training logistics for Maryland Sea Grant website team members and content managers, including scheduling, attendance tracking, materials preparation, and follow-up documentation.
• Organize shared project files, version-controlled documents, meeting artifacts, client feedback, and deliverable drafts in Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, or similar tools.
• Monitor open questions and dependencies that may affect schedule, quality, content migration, testing, or launch readiness.
• Escalate overdue actions, unresolved risks, missing inputs, or schedule concerns to the Project Manager in a timely and professional manner.
• Assist with maintaining project documentation needed to support acceptance, closeout, and post-launch maintenance activities.

Ascension LLC is seeking a detail-oriented, user-focused Training and Documentation Specialist to support a website redesign and Drupal CMS implementation for Maryland Sea Grant. This role is responsible for developing clear, practical, and accessible user guides, job aids, FAQs, workflow documentation, training materials, and post-launch support tracking tools that help Maryland Sea Grant staff confidently manage content within the new website.

The ideal candidate will understand how non-technical users learn new systems, how to translate CMS workflows into plain-language instructions, and how to support a successful transition from an outdated website environment to a modern, accessible, responsive Drupal platform. Maryland Sea Grant’s redesigned website must support improved content management, back-end content moderation workflows, review options prior to publication, and organized page creation that aligns with brand and style expectations. The Training and Documentation Specialist will help make those capabilities usable, repeatable, and sustainable for content contributors, content managers, editors, and administrators.

This position is especially important because the success of the redesigned website will depend not only on the technical build, but also on Maryland Sea Grant’s ability to maintain the site after launch. The selected candidate should bring strong instructional design instincts, excellent writing and organization skills, familiarity with Drupal or comparable CMS environments, and the ability to develop practical documentation that supports real staff workflows.

Summary of Contractor Role

The Training and Documentation Specialist will support CMS adoption by creating training and documentation that explains how Maryland Sea Grant staff will create, update, publish, review, archive, and maintain website content. The role will work closely with the Project Manager, Drupal Developer, UX/UI Designer, Content Strategist, and client stakeholders to document the final website structure, content types, editorial roles, moderation workflows, templates, and publishing processes.

The RFP requires the contractor to provide written instructional documentation before content migration, deliver training to the website team and content managers, provide training on the entire system for up to 10 additional MDSG employees, and create a User Guide with clear instructions on how to create, update, publish, and delete content for each user role. The Training and Documentation Specialist will be accountable for turning those requirements into usable materials, including user guides, quick-reference job aids, FAQs, workflow diagrams, training slide decks, recorded or live training support materials, issue logs, and post-launch support trackers.

This individual should be self-driven, organized, patient, and comfortable working in an iterative environment where website templates, user roles, permissions, and workflows may evolve during discovery, build-out, testing, migration, and launch. The candidate should be able to anticipate user confusion, identify documentation gaps, simplify complex CMS steps, and ensure materials are written in an accessible, plain-language format.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

• Develop CMS user guides that explain how to create, update, publish, unpublish, archive, and delete content within the Drupal CMS.
• Create role-based job aids for content contributors, content managers, editors, approvers, and site administrators.
• Document editorial workflows, including draft, review, approval, publishing, and revision states.
• Translate technical CMS functionality into plain-language instructions for non-technical users.
• Coordinate with the Drupal Developer and UX/UI team to understand content types, templates, permissions, menus, media libraries, and moderation workflows.
• Prepare training slide decks, quick-reference guides, checklists, and FAQs for Maryland Sea Grant staff.
• Support the required training session before content migration by preparing materials, exercises, sample scenarios, and step-by-step instructions.
• Support training for up to 10 additional MDSG employees prior to launch, including role-specific instruction and practical demonstrations.
• Create documentation for uploading and managing media, including images, files, videos, captions, alt text, and reuse of media across the website.
• Document procedures for managing website sections such as publications, blogs, Chesapeake Quarterly, newsroom/media content, research databases, student/funded PI archives, and online store content, as applicable.
• Develop FAQs based on anticipated staff questions and actual questions received during training, migration, testing, and post-launch support.
• Capture training feedback and recommend improvements to user documentation.
• Track post-launch support questions, issues, recurring user errors, and documentation updates.
• Update documentation during testing, launch readiness, and the six-month maintenance and support period.
• Support accessibility awareness by explaining content practices that help maintain Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 compliance, including headings, alt text, link text, document uploads, and readable formatting. The RFP requires compliance with Section 508 and WCAG 2.1.
• Maintain version control for all training and documentation materials.
• Collaborate with Ascension project leadership to ensure training artifacts align with the approved website design, templates, content moderation model, and client expectations.

Ascension LLC is seeking a CMS Training & Launch Readiness Specialist to support the Columbia Association Website Redesign effort by helping end users, content contributors, and internal stakeholders prepare for successful use of the new website management platform. This role is designed for a practical, detail-oriented training and adoption professional who understands how to translate a new content management system, website workflow, and launch process into clear, usable guidance for non-technical users.

This position is important because Columbia Association’s new website must be more than technically functional. It must be usable, sustainable, and manageable by CA staff after launch. The RFP requires the selected team to support training sessions, documentation, responsive support during content building, UAT support, deployment readiness, launch checklist activities, and post-launch support. This role helps reduce handoff risk by ensuring that CA’s content users, reviewers, and support participants understand what to do, how to do it, where to find guidance, and how to escalate issues during and after launch.

The ideal candidate brings experience supporting CMS training, website launch readiness, end-user documentation, stakeholder coordination, and adoption support. This individual should be comfortable working in a fast-moving implementation environment where content workflows, user permissions, page-building steps, and post-launch support needs must be explained clearly to users with varying levels of technical confidence.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The CMS Training & Launch Readiness Specialist will support the vendor team and Columbia Association stakeholders during the content building, testing, deployment, and post-launch transition phases of the website redesign project. The role will focus on developing practical training materials, job aids, content-user instructions, operational documentation, launch readiness checklists, and support handoff materials.

The candidate should be a strong communicator, organized planner, and user-focused documentation specialist who can convert technical or workflow-based information into simple, step-by-step guidance. The role will support readiness activities tied to CMS use, content governance, page-building processes, workflow approvals, accessibility-aware content practices, launch communications, support workflows, and post-launch issue resolution.

This position is expected to help solve the risk that often occurs when a new website platform is launched but users are not fully prepared to manage content, follow governance workflows, submit issues, validate updates, or sustain platform operations after go-live. The specialist will help ensure that CA staff are trained, equipped, and supported during the transition from implementation to operational use.

Key Responsibilities and Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The CMS Training & Launch Readiness Specialist will:

• Develop end-user training materials for CMS users, content authors, reviewers, approvers, and operational support participants.
• Create job aids, quick-reference guides, step-by-step instructions, checklists, and FAQs that explain common CMS activities, including content creation, editing, previewing, publishing, versioning, rollback, and media library use.
• Support training sessions for CA content users and stakeholders during the content building phase, including virtual walk-throughs, demonstrations, and reinforcement sessions.
• Prepare role-based guidance for content authors, approvers, administrators, and support users so each group understands its responsibilities within the CMS workflow.
• Document content governance processes, including approval workflows, content update procedures, escalation steps, and handoff expectations.
• Coordinate stakeholder readiness activities to confirm users understand timelines, responsibilities, content deadlines, training expectations, and launch support procedures.
• Develop launch communications and readiness materials, including go-live reminders, user instructions, support contacts, known issue procedures, and post-launch operating guidance.
• Support UAT readiness by helping users understand test scripts, expected outcomes, defect reporting procedures, and validation responsibilities.
• Assist with post-launch QA validation by collecting user feedback, documenting recurring issues, tracking content-user concerns, and coordinating updates with the project team.
• Maintain training and documentation materials as workflows, CMS configuration, page templates, or support procedures are refined.
• Organize handoff materials for CA staff, including training decks, recorded session notes, user guides, support workflow documentation, launch checklists, and operational reference materials.
• Collaborate with the UX/UI lead, CMS developer, accessibility/QA lead, stakeholder engagement lead, and project manager to ensure training content reflects the final solution.
• Translate technical instructions into plain-language guidance that non-technical users can follow without heavy developer support.
• Identify training gaps, adoption risks, unclear workflows, or user confusion points and recommend corrective actions before go-live.
• Support content-user readiness by reinforcing accessibility-aware content practices, including headings, alt text, link text, document handling, and plain-language web content practices.
• Track training attendance, user questions, action items, support issues, and documentation updates during the launch readiness period.

Ascension LLC is seeking a Frontend Accessibility & UAT Validation Lead to support a high-visibility website redesign effort for Columbia Association, a nonprofit community services organization serving residents, members, visitors, and program participants across Columbia, Maryland.

This role is designed for a detail-oriented frontend quality assurance, accessibility, and user acceptance testing professional who can validate that the new website experience is accessible, mobile-first, intuitive, and ready for public launch. The ideal candidate will bring hands-on experience testing responsive websites, validating WCAG 2.1 AA compliance, coordinating UAT with business stakeholders, documenting defects, tracking remediation, and helping cross-functional teams move from design and development into formal acceptance and release readiness.

The selected candidate will serve as Ascension’s quality and validation lead for frontend user experience, accessibility compliance, and stakeholder acceptance activities. This person will not be expected to lead the prime contractor’s enterprise QA strategy or backend technical remediation; instead, this role will provide focused leadership over Ascension’s assigned frontend validation, accessibility review, UAT coordination, stakeholder sign-off, and compliance reporting responsibilities.

Position Summary

The Frontend Accessibility & UAT Validation Lead will support the website redesign by validating that user-facing components, templates, workflows, content experiences, and transactional journeys meet functional, accessibility, usability, and mobile-readiness expectations. The role will support multiple implementation phases, including UX/UI design review, frontend development validation, content build support, UAT, deployment readiness, and post-launch QA review.

The candidate must be comfortable working in a collaborative delivery environment with a prime contractor, technical developers, UX/UI designers, content leads, business stakeholders, and client testing participants. The work will require strong judgment, disciplined documentation, and the ability to translate defects, accessibility findings, and stakeholder feedback into clear, actionable items for remediation.

The ideal candidate should be self-driven, organized, and able to work effectively in an ambiguous project environment with minimal supervision. This person should be skilled at anticipating quality risks, building practical validation checklists, managing multiple testing cycles, and ensuring that frontend issues are clearly tracked through resolution.

Day-to-Day Activities and Responsibilities

The Frontend Accessibility & UAT Validation Lead will:

• Review mobile-first wireframes, high-fidelity designs, design system components, and frontend templates for accessibility, usability, and consistency.
• Validate frontend implementation against approved designs, functional requirements, and responsive behavior expectations.
• Conduct WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility reviews using manual checks, assistive technology, browser tools, and automated testing tools.
• Assess website pages, forms, navigation, filters, search experiences, registration flows, member-facing journeys, and content templates for accessibility and usability barriers.
• Develop frontend QA checklists, accessibility validation checklists, UAT scripts, regression test scripts, and release readiness criteria.
• Coordinate UAT sessions with business stakeholders, content owners, and client testing participants.
• Document defects, accessibility findings, usability issues, and stakeholder feedback in a clear, prioritized, and actionable format.
• Track defects from identification through remediation, retesting, closure, and final sign-off.
• Support testing of mobile-first experiences across browsers, devices, and screen sizes.
• Validate frontend behavior tied to search, filtering, personalization, registration, scheduling, member/non-member journeys, and content discovery.
• Coordinate with developers and the prime contractor’s technical team to confirm frontend defects are understood and appropriately assigned.
• Perform regression testing after defect remediation, configuration changes, content migration updates, or release candidate updates.
• Prepare accessibility testing summaries, UAT status updates, defect reports, and release readiness recommendations.
• Support stakeholder sign-off workflows by confirming open issues, resolved issues, deferred items, and launch-impacting risks.
• Contribute to go-live readiness reviews, launch checklists, rollback readiness discussions, and post-launch QA validation.
• Maintain clear testing evidence, screenshots, issue logs, validation notes, and compliance support documentation.

Ascension LLC is seeking a Senior Frontend & Club Automation Integration Developer to support the Columbia Association Website Redesign effort. This role is intended for a senior hands-on developer who can translate approved UX/UI designs, mobile-first wireframes, CMS components, and integration requirements into a responsive, accessible, high-performing user experience.

The ideal candidate will serve as Ascension’s primary frontend production resource for implementing dynamic UI components, responsive templates, personalization-ready interfaces, search and discovery experiences, registration workflows, scheduling and availability displays, member/non-member pricing presentation logic, and secure transactional user journeys. The Columbia Association RFP requires a modern, mobile-first, audience-intelligent website that supports program registration, membership purchasing, event registration, contextual experiences, secure integrations, and a flexible CMS platform.

This position is especially important because CA’s website must support users who may move between informational, discovery, and transactional needs in a single session. The frontend experience must therefore be intuitive, accessible, fast on mobile devices, and capable of adapting based on authentication state, intent, and membership context.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Senior Frontend & Club Automation Integration Developer will support Phase 3 development and related build, testing, and launch-readiness activities for Ascension’s technical workshare. The contractor will implement responsive frontend templates, integrate dynamic UI components, support CMS component configuration, and build frontend experiences that align with the project’s mobile-first, accessibility-compliant, and audience-aware goals.

The role requires a developer who is comfortable working in a CMS-driven environment, integrating with APIs and third-party systems, collaborating with UX/UI designers and backend/platform developers, and translating user journeys into production-ready frontend functionality. The contractor must be able to build search/filtering interfaces, faceted navigation patterns, registration and scheduling workflows, member-facing Club Automation interfaces, authentication-aware display logic, and frontend personalization behaviors.

The ideal candidate should be detail-oriented, highly organized, self-directed, and comfortable working in an agile delivery environment where requirements may evolve through discovery, design validation, integration constraints, and user acceptance testing. This individual must be able to anticipate technical risks, propose practical solutions, and collaborate effectively with the project manager, UX/UI lead, CMS/platform architect, QA/accessibility resources, and integration team.

This role will help solve the practical implementation challenge of turning CA’s strategic vision into a reliable digital experience: a website that is not just visually modern, but also fast, usable, secure, accessible, integrated, and easy for CA users to navigate across programs, membership, events, policies, and transactions.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The Senior Frontend & Club Automation Integration Developer will be expected to:

• Implement responsive frontend templates based on approved mobile-first wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and design system standards.
• Develop reusable frontend components for CMS-managed pages, landing pages, program detail pages, registration pathways, membership pages, search results, and transactional flows.
• Integrate frontend components with CMS content models, page builders, reusable modules, centralized media libraries, and structured content.
• Support frontend implementation of Club Automation user-facing workflows, including registration, scheduling, availability, waitlist displays, member/non-member pricing presentation, and account-aware user journeys.
• Build authentication-aware frontend experiences that adjust content, calls-to-action, navigation, and interface states for logged-in versus anonymous users.
• Implement personalization-ready interface patterns that support rules-based or context-aware content delivery based on user intent, membership status, and session context.
• Develop search and discovery interfaces, including unified search, faceted navigation, filtering, document search presentation, and audience-aware discovery journeys.
• Optimize frontend performance for mobile users, including page speed, responsive layout behavior, image handling, lazy loading, caching support, and Core Web Vitals considerations.
• Ensure frontend accessibility alignment with WCAG 2.1 AA or the most current applicable accessibility standard required at implementation.
• Validate frontend behavior across major browsers, devices, screen sizes, and assistive technology considerations.
• Collaborate with UX/UI, backend, CMS, integration, QA, accessibility, and project management resources to resolve implementation issues.
• Translate integration requirements into user-facing interface behavior for APIs, middleware, authentication, CRM, calendar, payment, and Club Automation touchpoints.
• Support test planning, UAT, defect remediation, accessibility remediation, and launch-readiness activities.
• Document component behavior, integration assumptions, configuration steps, and frontend implementation notes for handoff to CA and the prime team.
• Participate in sprint planning, technical reviews, status meetings, defect triage, and launch checklist validation.
• Identify frontend risks related to performance, accessibility, browser compatibility, CMS constraints, personalization logic, and integration dependencies.
• Recommend practical solutions that balance user experience, maintainability, integration complexity, and project schedule.

Ascension LLC is seeking a Mobile-First UX/UI & Content Experience Lead to support the Columbia Association Website Redesign effort. This role is designed for a senior digital experience professional who can lead mobile-first UX strategy, translate stakeholder and community needs into intuitive user journeys, and support the design of a modern, contextual, audience-aware website experience.

The ideal candidate will bring a strong blend of UX strategy, UI design, frontend experience planning, accessibility-aware design, information architecture, content governance, search/discovery experience design, and stakeholder facilitation. This role is important because Columbia Association’s future website must support users who may register for programs, explore policies, search events, purchase memberships, and discover community resources within the same session. The RFP specifically states that the website must support fluid journeys, adapt dynamically, and avoid rigid audience segmentation.

This position will help ensure that CA’s digital experience is not only visually modern, but practical, accessible, mobile-optimized, content-driven, and usable by residents, members, non-members, staff, and community stakeholders.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Mobile-First UX/UI & Content Experience Lead will support Ascension’s assigned workshare by leading UX/UI strategy and execution for mobile-first, audience-aware website experiences. The contractor will create or support user flows, wireframes, prototypes, mobile-first layouts, high-fidelity mockups, reusable design system guidance, frontend UI standards, and accessibility-aware design validation.

This role will work closely with Ascension, the prime partner, technical development resources, CA stakeholders, content owners, and integration leads to ensure that the website experience aligns with the RFP’s objectives: improving program discovery and registration, enabling contextual experiences, supporting mobile-first performance, providing flexible CMS content management, and ensuring compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA and ADA accessibility requirements.

The ideal candidate should be a structured, detail-oriented UX leader who can operate in a fast-moving project environment, synthesize input from multiple stakeholders, convert discovery findings into actionable design artifacts, and balance usability, accessibility, content strategy, and technical feasibility. The candidate should be comfortable working in an agile or iterative project model where designs, content structures, and experience decisions are validated through stakeholder reviews, usability feedback, accessibility checks, and implementation coordination.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

• Lead UX/UI strategy and execution for mobile-first website experiences, including user flows, wireframes, prototypes, high-fidelity mockups, and responsive layouts.
• Translate stakeholder needs, business requirements, audience behaviors, and content priorities into clear user journeys and frontend experience recommendations.
• Design mobile-first experiences for key website flows, including program discovery, registration pathways, membership-related journeys, event exploration, search experiences, and content consumption.
• Develop reusable design system guidance, frontend UI standards, component behavior notes, and interaction patterns to support consistent implementation across the website.
• Coordinate with technical leads to ensure design decisions are feasible within the selected CMS, frontend framework, integration architecture, Club Automation workflows, and personalization approach.
• Support information architecture planning, content structure, page module needs assessment, navigation logic, and content hierarchy decisions.
• Lead frontend search and discovery experience design, including faceted navigation, filtering, contextual recommendations, document discovery, and user-centric search patterns.
• Validate user experience flows tied to personalization, audience-aware content, member/non-member experiences, resident/non-resident scenarios, and contextual navigation.
• Conduct accessibility-aware design reviews to support WCAG 2.1 AA and ADA compliance expectations.
• Support frontend accessibility validation, usability reviews, and design remediation recommendations.
• Facilitate stakeholder design reviews, gather feedback, document decisions, and manage revisions through approved review cycles.
• Coordinate content migration planning with CA teams, including content restructuring, editorial workflow validation, frontend content QA, migration approvals, and usability validation for migrated content.
• Review frontend templates and page-building experiences to ensure they are intuitive for content managers and consistent with approved design standards.
• Support QA/UAT activities, including usability testing, frontend validation, defect review, accessibility validation, stakeholder sign-offs, and release readiness reviews.
• Prepare design notes, content experience documentation, training inputs, and operational handoff materials as needed.
• Collaborate with the project team during launch readiness activities, including communication workflows, stakeholder readiness coordination, post-launch QA validation, and support coordination.

Ascension LLC is seeking a Stakeholder Engagement, Discovery & Launch Readiness Lead to support its role on the Columbia Association Website Redesign effort. This position is designed for a senior, client-facing professional who can translate stakeholder needs, discovery findings, governance considerations, business workflows, and launch-readiness dependencies into actionable requirements and implementation inputs for a modern, mobile-first, audience-intelligent website.

This role is important because the Columbia Association RFP requires the selected vendor to deliver a full website rebuild that includes strategy, design, development, systems integration, testing, deployment, and ongoing support. The new platform must support contextual user experiences, improve program discovery and registration, enable robust analytics, provide a flexible CMS, ensure secure integrations, and optimize mobile-first performance.

The ideal candidate will be comfortable operating at the intersection of stakeholder engagement, business discovery, requirements facilitation, project coordination, content governance, training readiness, and launch support. This is not a hands-on development role. It is a delivery coordination and discovery leadership role that helps ensure Ascension’s assigned workshare is well organized, well documented, and aligned to the prime contractor’s implementation approach and CA’s business objectives.

Summary of Contractor Role

The Stakeholder Engagement, Discovery & Launch Readiness Lead will support discovery, strategy, governance, implementation planning, training coordination, stakeholder communication, and post-launch readiness activities for the Columbia Association Website Redesign project. The role will help facilitate stakeholder workshops, document business and operational requirements, coordinate CA resource dependencies, support sprint and implementation planning, and ensure that business needs are translated into clear work products for the broader delivery team.

The Columbia Association RFP requires vendors to provide a detailed implementation plan, including timeline, milestones, dependencies, risks, resource allocation, deliverables by phase, project team structure, roles and responsibilities, estimated hours by role, and required CA staffing needs. This position directly supports those expectations by serving as the business-facing coordination lead for Ascension’s assigned scope.

The ideal candidate should be a detail-oriented, organized, and highly responsive facilitator who can work in an ambiguous project environment with limited supervision. The candidate should be able to anticipate risks, identify decision points, manage competing priorities, and help stakeholders clarify what they need from the redesigned website. The candidate should also be able to support communication between business users, technical teams, content owners, designers, testers, and leadership stakeholders.

This position is especially aligned to Ascension’s documented strengths in project coordination, meeting facilitation, data collection and analysis, reports and presentation development, SharePoint and workflow support, curriculum development, and training facilitation. Ascension’s past performance also includes stakeholder engagement, workshops, surveys, interviews, regular meetings, executive briefings, SharePoint communications, website-related enhancements, Section 508-aware communications, training support, and project coordination.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The contractor will be expected to:

• Facilitate discovery workshops, stakeholder interviews, and business requirements sessions with CA representatives, the prime contractor, and project team members.
• Document stakeholder needs, business rules, operational workflows, content governance needs, approval processes, and launch-readiness dependencies.
• Translate discovery inputs into structured requirements, decision logs, action item trackers, risk items, and implementation planning inputs.
• Coordinate with the prime contractor’s UX/UI, technical architecture, CMS, integration, testing, and deployment teams to ensure stakeholder findings are reflected in project execution.
• Support user journey mapping, information architecture discussions, page module needs assessment, and requirements validation activities associated with Phase 1 Discovery & Strategy.
• Track CA resource dependencies, including content resources, IT support, testing participants, training participants, and stakeholder review availability.
• Maintain meeting agendas, meeting notes, action item logs, decision registers, issue logs, and stakeholder follow-up documentation.
• Assist with sprint coordination, backlog refinement inputs, stakeholder review cycles, and acceptance planning for assigned workstream activities.
• Support training planning, training documentation, user readiness materials, and content build support activities aligned to the RFP’s training, documentation, and content-building requirements.
• Coordinate launch readiness reviews, stakeholder signoffs, go-live checklist inputs, rollback planning inputs, and post-launch support handoff documentation.
• Monitor risks, dependencies, and open decisions that could affect discovery completion, design review, content readiness, UAT, deployment, or post-launch support.
• Prepare concise status updates, briefing materials, and stakeholder summaries for Ascension leadership, the prime contractor, and project stakeholders.
• Support accessibility-aware coordination by ensuring stakeholder-facing content, communications, review materials, and training artifacts consider WCAG/ADA expectations identified in the RFP.
• Ensure documentation is organized, version controlled, and available to appropriate team members through approved collaboration tools.