About SickKids

Dedicated exclusively to children and their families, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) is one of the largest and most respected paediatric healthcare centres in the world.  As innovators in child health, we lead and partner to improve the health of children through the integration of healthcare, leading-edge research and education.  Our reputation would not have been built - nor could it be maintained - without the skills, knowledge and experience of the extraordinary people who come to work here every day.  SickKids is committed to ongoing learning and development, and features a caring and supportive work environment that combines exceptionally high standards of practice.

When you join SickKids, you become part of our community. We share a commitment and determination to fulfill our vision of Healthier Children. A Better World.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to work alongside the world's best in paediatric healthcare.

Position Description

The CHILD Cohort Study is seeking a Data Manager, Specialist to support the stewardship and use of CHILD's national longitudinal research data. 

CHILD follows approximately 3,500 families from pregnancy through childhood and adolescence across four Canadian study sites. Its data resources include longitudinal questionnaire, clinical, environmental and biological information collected across multiple study visits. 

Reporting jointly to the CHILD Deputy Director and the Subbarao Research Program Manager, the Research Data Manager will be part of CHILD's National Coordination Centre (NCC) and will lead the day-to-day management, quality control, cleaning, harmonization and documentation of CHILD research data across study sites. The successful candidate will develop strong knowledge of CHILD's data and help ensure that it is accurate, findable, well documented, and ready for approved research use. The role requires someone who can work independently within established priorities, identify data-management problems, recommend practical solutions, and improve recurring workflows using reproducible and automated approaches. 

Here's What You'll Get To Do:

Workflow improvement and automation 

• Lead improvements to recurring data-management workflows. 
• Develop reproducible and automated processes for data cleaning, validation, reconciliation, harmonization and reporting. 
• Maintain clear and reusable code. 
• Develop and maintain data-management SOPs. 
• Reduce manual work and the risk of error while ensuring outputs remain accurate. 

Data management and quality 

• Manage day-to-day data-management processes for ongoing CHILD data collection. 
• Develop, apply and maintain standards for data quality, structure, naming, and documentation. 
•  Act as the link between the National Coordinating Centre and the study sites on all data matters. 
• Monitor data completeness, accuracy, and consistency across study sites. 
• Investigate data-quality issues and lead their resolution with study staff and sites. 
• Identify recurring problems and recommend improvements to data collection processes. 
• Maintain data access controls and user permissions across CHILD systems, and ensure data are backed up, retained and archived in line with requirements. 
• Support site data acquisition, including REDCap instrument set-up, monitoring of incoming data and front-end quality control  

Research data support 

• Development of detailed documentation resources of CHILD variables, measures, visits, and datasets. 
• Advise researchers on relevant variables, timepoints, and participant groups. 
• Assess basic data feasibility, including variable availability, available sample size, completion, and missingness. 
• Explain data limitations and differences across visits. 
• Prepare, validate, and document approved data extracts. 
• Coordinate and fulfil requests for data sharing from researchers within and outside SickKids in collaboration with NCC staff  
• Prepare the cost estimate for the data components of each request, using CHILD's standard price list, to support the invoicing and access agreements. 
• Attend Data Access Committee meetings to answer questions on variables and data quality  
• Securely transfer approved data extracts to researchers, and receive, validate, and catalogue derived data returned at project closure. 

Longitudinal harmonization and documentation 

• Lead the cleaning and harmonization of data across visits and timepoints. 
• Reconcile differences in variables, questionnaires, response options, and collection methods. 
• Maintain data dictionaries, metadata, variable mappings, and dataset documentation. 
• Document transformations, harmonization decisions, limitations, and dataset versions. 
• Ensure that CHILD data are organized and understandable to researchers and staff. 

CHILDdb collaboration 

• Work regularly with the CHILDdb development team to communicate data requirements, test changes and support platform improvements. 
• Help translate research and operational needs into clear requirements for CHILDdb improvement. 
• Validate changes affecting data organization, documentation, and extraction. 

Reporting and Training 

• Produce routine data-completeness and data-quality reporting for CHILD leadership, the executive committee and funders, and generate data-availability tables to support grant applications. 
• Provide training, documentation, and day-to-day support to site staff and NCC colleagues on CHILD data systems and standards. Oversee studentship opportunities to support in routine data tasks 

Here's What You'll Need:

Qualifications 

• Master's degree in epidemiology, population health or a related field, and/or at least three years of experience managing complex health or research data 
• Experience with longitudinal, cohort, clinical or population-health datasets. 
• Experience with data cleaning, validation, harmonization and documentation. 
• Strong proficiency in R or Python. 
• Experience with version control systems. 
• Familiarity with privacy and confidentiality requirements for human participant research data. 
• Experience developing reproducible or automated data workflows. 
• Experience working with investigators or research teams to define data requirements. 
• Demonstrated ability to independently identify problems, recommend solutions and implement improvements. 
• Strong communication, documentation and organizational skills. 
• Demonstrated ability to understand, synthesise and coherently evaluate clinical and research data. 
• Background in statistics, epidemiology or population health, with a working understanding of how cohort studies are designed and analysed is an asset 
• A commitment to understanding and aiding in the pursuit of equity, diversity and inclusion objectives

Preferred:

• Experience with REDCap and/or OpenSpecimen. 
• Experience with APIs and SQL/excel. 
• Experience with Git/Github 
• Experience with multisite studies. 
• Experience collaborating with software development teams. 
• Familiarity with genomic, microbiome, metabolomic, proteomic or other multi-omic datasets. 
• Familiarity with trusted research environments and controlled-access data platforms. 

Employment Type: Full-time temporary 1 year contract with modified benefits (i.e., health & dental), 1.0 FTE

Our Commitment to Diversity

SickKids is committed to championing equity, diversity and inclusion in all that we do, fostering an intentionally inclusive and culturally safe environment that reflects the diversity of the patients, families and communities we serve. Learn more about workplace inclusion.

Accessibility & Accommodation

If you require accommodation during the application process, please reach out to our aSKHR team.  SickKids can provide access and inclusion supports to eligible candidates to support their full engagement during the interview and selection process as well as to ensure candidates are able to perform their duties once successfully hired.  If you are invited for an interview and require accommodation, please let us know at the time of your invitation to interview. Information received related to access, inclusion or accommodation will be addressed confidentially.

How To Apply

Technical difficulties? Email ***@sickkids.ca 🔒 Premium with a short description of the issues you are experiencing. We will not accept resumes sent to this inbox but we are happy to respond to requests for technical assistance.

Tip: Combine your cover letter and resume into ONE document of 20 pages or less as you cannot upload multiple documents as part of your application.

Every application is reviewed by a human recruiter and all hiring decisions are made by people. In some cases, AI-assisted tools are used to help review applications based on job-related qualifications.

All positions posted on the SickKids Hospital's Careers Site represent current vacancies, unless otherwise posted in the job description.