The Research Assistant should have prior experience with multi-tasking skills working with study participants and patients. He/She will directly understudy and assist research and clinical faculty to identify and recruit potential study participants in the clinics and in the community, consent eligible study participants, schedule study visits at various time intervals, instrument the study survey in hard copy or REDCap, and collect, handle, process and store urine and blood specimens. He/She will also assist in record keeping and data management. He/She is responsible for adhering to research standard operating procedures (SOP) for collecting and storing Biosamples, and for educating and training study participants to adhere to the intervention of interest by following study protocols.


The RA-2 is responsible for data collection by interview and data entry into the study database. RA-2 will work closely with the program clinician at Nashville General Hospital (Dr. Nzerue & Dr. Ogunde) and our contact partner at MDHA, and will be supervised in the field by the CRA/PC. He/She will be responsible for completing consent forms, research survey data by interview, collect and handle participant specimens, any relevant patient data, and hand over same to the CRA/PC for safe keeping and storage. The RA-2 will be directly supervised in the field by the CRA/PC. This full-time research assistant position will support work performed via a National Institute for Health P50 funded research award titled, "Community Team Lifestyle Immersion Program for Chronic Disease Prevention and Control". The research assistant will report directly to the Program Clinician & to Dr. Chike Nzerue, over a 2.5-year period. More detail about the study can be obtained directly by email to fukoli@mmc.edu



Daily Operations

• Community Outreach, Participant Recruitment and Consenting.


• Data Collection by Interviewing Participants.


• Blood and Urine Sample Collection and handling


• Participant Education & Study Incentive Distribution.


• Survey Filing, Data Entry and Study Report drafting.


• Scheduling follow-up study visits. Placing reminder calls, text messages and emails.


• Performs other related duties as assigned.

• Must have the ability to express self clearly and concisely, both orally and in writing, and to establish and maintain effective rapport and effective working relations with participants and research team members.


• Must have the ability to operate personal computer, other office equipment, and a variety of audio-visual equipment, and proficiency using Microsoft Work, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft, PowerPoint, etc.


• Should have proficiency in biosample collection, phlebotomy, blood and urine specimen handling and storage.


• Must be familiar with entering and managing research study data via SPSS database or electronic database such as REDCap, with willingness to learn same within 2 weeks.


• Must have basic physical fitness and nutrition recommendation knowledge, and the ability to demonstrate physical fitness and healthy plate activities.


• Must express readiness to learn research skills required to successfully implement this education intervention.

• Bachelor's degree in health-related fields such as social work, health administration and planning, and behavioral science from an accredited college or university. Additional related certification and training will be preferred.


• Some prior experience conducting human subjects research including recruitment and retention of racial/ethnic minorities into research studies.


• Must have clinical and/or community-based research experience working with patients and study participants