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.