Project Coordinator at International Rescue Committee

Job Overview

• The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people survive, recover, and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC works in more than 40 countries and in cities across the United States to restore safety, dignity, and hope to millions of people uprooted by conflict and disaster.
• The Infectious Disease AI and Data Governance portfolio (within CRRD Technical Excellence) builds diagnostic tools for diseases and settings that AI has consistently overlooked. The Project Coordinator will support the team’s day-to-day project coordination, operational support, regulatory and data governance management, dataset expansion, and curriculum/training support—keeping workplans on track, unblocking administrative bottlenecks, and enabling the Senior Specialist, to focus on strategic delivery.

Portfolio Scope

The Infectious Disease AI and Data Governance portfolio uses a modular, multimodal suite of image-based diagnostics across three clinical domains:

• Radiology — Expanding pediatric chest X-ray datasets and AI tools for neglected diseases, starting with pediatric TB. The work builds on collaborations in Haiti, Ghana, and Nigeria and is designed to expand to other conditions.
• Dermatology — Building skin-lesion datasets for IRC contexts, with darker skin tones, real-world lighting, and comparator diseases. Starting with mpox, the work can pivot to cutaneous anthrax, leishmaniasis, and other conditions using a 50,000-image public dataset and app-based testing.
• Microscopy — Adapting imaging and explainable AI for humanitarian diagnostics, starting with Chagas and extending to malaria, filariasis, and leishmaniasis.

Major Responsibilities

Project Coordination & Operations

• Maintain portfolio workplans, trackers, and dashboards for real-time visibility into milestones, risks, and decisions.
• Navigate internal IRC administrative, procurement, legal, and HR systems to ensure ethical reviews and data use agreements are completed and consultants/team members onboarded.
• Proactively identify and resolve operational bottlenecks; liaise with grants and finance teams on budget tracking.
• Maintain knowledge management systems and ensure project teams have timely access to documentation. 

Regulatory Compliance & Data Governance

• Act as primary IRB PI Proxy: draft, submit, amend, and renew protocol applications across IRC and collaborating review boards.
• Coordinate, draft, and track Data Use Agreements (DUAs) and Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs) between universities and the IRC, ensuring patient data privacy.
• Support design and implementation of data governance frameworks for fragile, conflict-affected settings.

Dataset Expansion & Collection

• Coordinate identification, review, and extraction of clinical image data from public sources (open-access journals, registries, repositories).
• Manage secure transfer and ingestion of medical image datasets from international and US partners.
• Oversee modular image-data ingestion pipelines across modalities; build reusable data-collection instruments; conduct QA/QC.

Curriculum, Training & Adoption Support

• Draft and coordinate modular, multilingual (French/English) training curricula for frontline healthcare workers on AI diagnostic tools.
• Manage curriculum consultants: track deliverables, coordinate clinical review, and ensure materials are feasible for resource-constrained settings.
• Maintain REDCap-based data-collection and image-labeling workflows; uphold annotation guidelines and QA/QC standards.
• Support acceptability/usability studies on clinician adoption, coordinating data collection and channeling findings back into tool and curriculum design.
• Support train-the-trainer rollouts and pilot implementations; document lessons learned for cross-country adaptation.

Stakeholder Coordination

• Coordinate operational communication between IRC country programs and collaborating AI research teams (NYU Grossman and university partners in Africa and other regions).
• Coordinate logistics for partner meetings, technical working groups, donor briefings, and policy forums.

Reporting & Business Development

• Support donor reporting: develop templates, track deadlines, consolidate inputs, and format final submissions.
• Assist in drafting and editing research write-ups, grant reports, policy briefs, and academic manuscripts.
• Provide project management support for business development: track proposal timelines, coordinate inputs, and maintain a funding pipeline tracker.

Administrative Support

• Provide day-to-day administrative support including scheduling, meeting logistics, and shared filing systems.
• Draft and distribute meeting agendas, minutes, and action trackers; follow up on outstanding items.
• Support onboarding of new team members, consultants, and partners onto portfolio systems and workflows.

Experience & Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Public Health, Global Affairs, Bioethics, Healthcare Administration, Data Science, or related field.

Required Experience

• 3-6 years of relevant project coordination experience in a large international NGO, humanitarian organization, or academic medical center.
• Experience working in fragile or humanitarian health settings, particularly with infectious diseases.
• Proven ability to navigate bureaucratic environments with patience and tenacity.
• Direct experience drafting or managing IRB protocols and data-sharing/legal agreements.

Skills & Competencies

• Communication: Exceptional written/verbal skills; ability to write professional updates for leadership, draft academic literature, and communicate across diverse cultures.
• Project Management: Strong organizational skills; able to manage multiple workstreams, build workplans and dashboards, and meet deadlines.
• Data Fluency: Comfort with data systems, dataset management, and QA/QC.
• Tools: Proficiency with Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, spreadsheets, and shared trackers.
• Global Health: Understanding of global health initiatives and clinical diagnostics in low-resource settings.
• UX/UI: Ability to contribute to design of user-facing interfaces for frontline health workers (no coding required).

Preferred Qualifications

• REDCap experience (building surveys, managing databases).
• Database management or SQL experience.
• Programming (Python, R) for AI or statistical analysis — a plus, not required.
• Professional working proficiency in French.
• Background or strong interest in AI ethics, infectious diseases, digital health, or curriculum design for humanitarian settings.