Data Analyst and AI Specialist – Institutional Effectiveness and Planning – Office of the Provost

The Data Analyst and AI Specialist will help advance Carnegie Mellon’s efforts to leverage data for strategic decision-making across academic and administrative functions. This role requires expertise in database systems, statistical analysis, and data visualization tools to transform complex datasets into actionable insights that drive student success, operational efficiency, and institutional effectiveness. This position will combine data cleaning and preparation skills with data visualization and communication skills.

This position collaborates with business leaders across divisions including but not limited to the provost division, academic colleges, enrollment management, student success, finance and budget, student affairs, human resources, and computing services. They will collaborate through the Data Analytics Community of Practice and help implement the CMU Data Strategy by ensuring data integrity, privacy compliance, and ethical use of university information. A successful candidate in this role will combine technical proficiency with strong communication skills to translate analytical findings into compelling narratives that inform institutional planning and demonstrate the impact of university initiatives to a wide range of stakeholders.

Core responsibilities include:

Dashboard Development and Reporting

• Design and implement data visualization dashboards that translate complex institutional data into actionable insights for university stakeholders at various levels.
• Assist in implementing the university’s data strategy and development of data franchises across the university business units.
• Develop new dashboards and reports to support university planning and operations using PowerBI
• Assist in managing permissions and data access to published PowerBI and Tableau reports.
• Convert existing Tableau dashboards and reports to PowerBI.

Data Preparation and Advanced Analysis

• Partner with key stakeholders and data franchises within the university to facilitate development of data insights to support decision making.
• Contributes to developing existing and new AI solutions in data preparation and automation pipelines. 
• Configures and orchestrates RAG implementations to create AI Chatbots and other tools for non-technical users.
• Utilizes AI models to extract structured data from unstructured text sources
• Contributes to chatbot development and agentic AI workflows to enable AI to answer questions from internal and external data sources.
• Performs complex statistical analyses of financial, organizational, developmental and/or planning data. Verifies the correctness of the data reported. Makes recommendations based on these analyses.
• Complete complex data analysis to measure effectiveness of key areas and reports results to university leadership.

Database Management and Permission Management

• Assists with writing SQL queries that translate raw and unfiltered data by creating semantic layer and reporting views in the database to be used for reporting.
• Collaborates to combine data from multiple sources and documents processes and data definitions.
• Creates consistent and reproducible workflows that automate reporting requirements.

Collaboration and Facilitation with Business Partners and Collaborators

• Collaborates with data partners in developing data analytics and AI solutions to support the University’s academic mission and operational objectives.
• Communicates complex and sometimes conflicting information clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Identifies data challenges and/or roadblocks to project success and recommend solutions to overcome barriers to project completion.
• Collaborates with other divisions and departments to create verified and reusable data products and data sources.

Adaptability, excellence, and passion are vital qualities within Carnegie Mellon University. We are in search of a team member who can effectively interact with a varied population of internal and external partners at a high level of integrity. We are looking for someone who shares our values and who will support the mission of the university through their work.

You should demonstrate:

• An ability to work with sensitive information, maintain confidentiality and use discretion.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.
• Ability to collaborate and work well as part of a team.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required, Master’s degree preferred.
• 0-2 years of related work experience.
• Experience with data analysis and generating reports using business intelligence tools required. 
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