Research Scientist & Tobacco Treatment Program Manager

Benefits

All full-time university staff are eligible for VCU’s robust benefits package that includes comprehensive health benefits, paid annual and holiday leave granted up front, generous tuition benefits, retirement planning and savings options, tax-deferred annuity and cash match programs, employee discounts, well-being resources, abundant opportunities for career development and advancement, and more.

• Continuing education for undergraduate and graduate tuition for a maximum of 6 credits per semester;
• Professional development opportunities encouraged and offered for employees as part of annual career development, e.g. certifications, seminars, courses, annual conferences, mentorship;
• 28 Vacation Days, 12+ State Holidays, and 4 Days to volunteer;
• Medical, Dental and Vision Health Benefits to meet the needs of employees and their eligible family members from the Commonwealth of Virginia as well as optional FSA;
• Participation in the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) and other retirement saving options;
• Parental and Caregiver Leave, Short Term Disability (STD), Disability Insurance, Voluntary Long Term Care Insurance, and Employee Assistance Program.

Unit: Massey Comprehensive Cancer Ctr MBU

Department: Massey Central Admin

Department Summary: Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center

Mission: To reduce the state cancer burden for all Virginians by addressing the confluence between biological, social, and policy drivers through high-impact, cutting-edge research; person-centered care across the continuum, from prevention through survivorship; community integration; and training the next generation of community-centric researchers and healthcare professionals

Vision: To be a premier community-focused cancer center leading the nation in cancer health equity research and ensuring optimal health outcomes for all

Why Richmond?

Duties & Responsibilities

The Research Scientist and Tobacco Treatment Program Manager is a hybrid scientific and operational role that advances the Cancer Service Line’s cancer survivorship research portfolio while leading the day-to-day delivery and development of the Tobacco Treatment Service (TTS). The position develops and implements rigorous survivorship research protocols, conducts epidemiologic and outcomes analyses, contributes to grants and publications, and translates findings into practical improvements in supportive oncology care.

As manager of TTS, the position ensures accessible, evidence-informed tobacco treatment for patients and survivors; facilitates at least one group smoking-cessation session each week; coordinates referrals, documentation, follow-up, and program evaluation; collaborates with institutional tobacco researchers and clinical partners; represents the program in community cessation activities; and develops a research agenda aligned with the vision and strategic priorities of Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center. The role exercises independent judgment for routine-to-moderately complex research and program matters and refers high-risk clinical, regulatory, personnel, or financial issues to senior leadership.

Duties include but are not limited to:

Cancer Survivorship Research

• Protocol development and implementation: Develop research questions, aims, conceptual frameworks, study designs, measures, analytic plans, power calculations, recruitment approaches, data-management plans, and operational workflows for cancer survivorship studies. Coordinate projects from concept and protocol development through IRB review, implementation, analysis, dissemination, and closeout.
• Epidemiologic and outcomes research: Lead or support analyses using electronic health records, cancer registries, administrative data, surveys, national surveillance datasets, and other complex sources. Apply appropriate methods, which may include survival analysis, multilevel modeling, causal inference, systematic review, meta-analysis, predictive modeling, and mixed or quantitative program-evaluation approaches.
• Research operations and compliance: Maintain accurate protocols, regulatory files, data dictionaries, standard operating procedures, timelines, decision logs, and quality controls. Monitor milestones, research volume, workload, and deliverables; identify barriers early; and coordinate corrective action with investigators and institutional partners.
• Grant and scholarly development: Contribute scientific methods, preliminary analyses, literature synthesis, budgets or resource assumptions, and project plans to grant proposals. Prepare and co-author abstracts, manuscripts, presentations, technical reports, and sponsor deliverables; support compliant post-award implementation and project closeout.
• Team science: Collaborate with faculty investigators, clinicians, biostatisticians, trainees, community-engagement teams, research administrators, and external partners. Provide methodological consultation and mentor students or junior team members in study design, data analysis, reproducible workflows, and interpretation.

Tobacco Treatment Program

• Program leadership and daily operations: Manage the operational delivery and continuous improvement of TTS across the Cancer Service Line. Establish annual goals, workflows, referral pathways, service standards, outreach plans, performance measures, and reporting processes consistent with Cancer Service Line and Massey priorities.
• Direct tobacco-treatment services: Plan and facilitate at least one structured group smoking-cessation session each week for patients, survivors, caregivers, or other approved participants. Provide evidence-informed education, behavioral counseling, relapse-prevention support, and connections to appropriate clinical and community resources within professional scope and institutional policy.
• Care coordination and access: Partner with oncology, primary care, supportive services, pharmacy, nursing, social work, navigation, and digital-health teams to strengthen identification, referral, enrollment, follow-up, and continuity. Ensure timely documentation and escalation of medication, mental-health, safety, or other clinical issues to licensed treating professionals.
• Institutional research collaboration: Build active collaborations with Massey and VCU tobacco researchers to integrate clinical service delivery with implementation science, population health, health-equity, and survivorship research. Support pilot studies, pragmatic evaluations, clinical research recruitment, and translation of evidence into practice.
• Community engagement: Participate in community education, screening, outreach, and smoking-cessation activities, including partnerships serving populations with high tobacco burden or barriers to care. Adapt engagement strategies to community priorities and support bidirectional communication with community partners.
• Research agenda and evaluation: Develop and maintain a multi-year TTS research and evaluation agenda aligned with Massey’s vision. Define priority questions, populations, outcomes, data sources, funding opportunities, dissemination plans, and partnership needs. Track reach, engagement, service delivery, treatment completion, patient-reported outcomes, quit-related outcomes, disparities, and implementation measures using approved definitions and methods.
• Quality and sustainability: Use performance data, participant feedback, current evidence, and stakeholder input to improve service quality and access. Develop standard procedures, training materials, work aids, dashboards, and business cases that support responsible growth, funding, and sustainability.

Administration and Leadership

• Planning and reporting: Develop annual work plans, schedules, communication plans, metrics, and resource projections. Prepare concise reports and presentations for Cancer Service Line and Massey leadership, investigators, funders, and community partners.
• Operational coordination: Facilitate meetings, clarify roles, coordinate assignments, and maintain productive relationships across participating units. Recommend process improvements and implement approved policy, workflow, or technology changes.
• Training and functional leadership: Train staff, trainees, and collaborators in study procedures and tobacco-treatment workflows. Provide functional direction to assigned personnel; formal supervisory duties, if any, will follow the approved HR classification and organizational structure.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Doctoral degree in epidemiology, public health, population health, behavioral science, health services research, nursing science, a closely related discipline or an equivalent combination of training & experience.
• At least three years of relevant research experience in cancer epidemiology, cancer survivorship, tobacco control, supportive oncology, population health, or a closely related area
• Current Tobacco Treatment Specialist certification or documented ability to complete an approved certification within six months of appointment.
• Demonstrated ability to design and implement research protocols, prepare IRB materials, manage study timelines and data, analyze results, and contribute to peer-reviewed dissemination.
• Experience with quantitative epidemiologic methods and statistical programming using one or more platforms such as SAS, R, Stata, Python, SQL, SPSS, or an equivalent tool.
• Experience working with one or more complex health-data sources, such as electronic health records, cancer registries, surveillance systems, administrative claims, clinical research data, surveys, or census-based datasets.
• Demonstrated expertise or applied experience in tobacco cessation, tobacco-control research, behavioral intervention delivery, or implementation of evidence-informed health programs.
• Ability and willingness to facilitate a minimum of one smoking-cessation group session each week, including occasional schedule flexibility needed to meet participant and community needs.
• Strong scientific writing, presentation, group-facilitation, interpersonal, project-management, and time-management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with investigators, clinicians, administrators, trainees, patients, and community partners and to foster an environment of respect, professionalism, and civility among people with varied backgrounds and experiences.
• Research or program experience in an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center, academic medical center, oncology practice, or cancer survivorship program.
• Demonstrated record of peer-reviewed publications in cancer survivorship, tobacco cessation, cancer epidemiology, health disparities, supportive oncology, or related fields.
• Experience conducting systematic reviews or meta-analyses and applying advanced methods such as causal inference, multilevel modeling, survival analysis, data mining, or predictive modeling.
• Experience contributing methods, analysis plans, power calculations, or evaluation components to externally funded grants and community-engaged research initiatives.
• Experience teaching, mentoring, or translating complex epidemiologic evidence for clinical, community, student, or executive audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to work in and foster an environment of respect, professionalism and civility with a population of faculty, staff, and students from all backgrounds and experiences, or a commitment to do so as a staff member at VCU.

Preferred Qualifications

• Clinical or health-professions training that supports effective collaboration with oncology care teams, while recognizing that this role does not independently practice outside the individual’s license or institutional privileges.
• Experience developing dashboards or visualizations and implementing reproducible data-management and analytic workflows

VCU is committed to hiring veterans! VCU will include a veteran’s period(s) of military service in the calculation of their annual leave accrual rate. This may provide veterans with an increased leave accrual!

Please let us know if you were referred by a current Massey employee to ensure we honor our commitment to the Employee Referral Program.

Position will remain open until filled. Applications received by October 28th, 2026 will be given priority consideration.

Salary Range: Starting at $100,000.00 Commensurate with experience.

FLSA Exemption Status: Exempt

Hours per Week: 40

Restricted Position: No

ORP Eligible: Yes

Flexible Work Arrangement: Fully onsite

University Job Title: 93233 - Open

Contact Information: MasseyHR@vcu.edu

Contact Name: Callie Darling