Research Specialist, Department of Community Health Sciences

Location
Karachi, Pakistan

Introduction
Aga Khan University chartered in 1983 as Pakistan's first private international university, is committed to the provision of education, research, and health care of international standards relevant to Pakistan and the region. The affiliated Aga Khan University Hospital provides state-of-the-art clinical facilities and well-equipped diagnostic services. The University currently has teaching sites in Pakistan, East Africa, the United Kingdom, and Afghanistan, and is a major component of Aga Khan Development Network.

As an equal opportunity employer, AKU believes in promoting a diverse and inclusive culture and is committed to adopt appropriate standards for safeguarding and promoting a respectful relationship with and between diverse workforce of its faculty, staff, trainees, volunteers, beneficiaries, wider communities, and other stakeholders with whom it works, including children and vulnerable adults and expects all employees/trainees and partners to share this commitment.

The Department of Community Health Sciences (CHS) is the leading unit of its type in Pakistan, recognized regionally and internationally for the relevance, quality, and extent of its work in support of public health and the development of primary health care systems. It comprises of five major operational sections: Epidemiology & biostatistics, Health policy & management, Population & reproductive health, Environmental health & climate change, and non-communicable diseases & mental health.

This is a grant funded contractual position.

Responsibilities:

You will be responsible to:

• support operationalization of the project’s MEL framework, logical framework, indicator matrix, and performance monitoring systems
• develop and maintain indicator definitions, data sources, collection methods, reporting frequencies, and targets
• track quality-of-care indicators across provincial, district, facility, and community levels; identify gaps and performance variation
• support development and refinement of quality-of-care measurement tools, checklists, assessment instruments, and data collection protocols
• undertake frequent field visits to districts across Punjab to conduct and support assessments, monitoring, verification, and stakeholder engagement
• conduct structured monitoring visits to assess progress against standards, indicators, milestones, and district action plans
• support rapid diagnostics and facility/district quality-of-care assessments
• work with district and facility teams to identify bottlenecks and translate findings into practical improvement actions
• participate in review meetings, performance dialogues, and quality-improvement discussions
• contribute to operational research and evaluation activities related to quality of care and health-system performance
• support research protocols, data collection tools, analysis plans, reports, abstracts, manuscripts, policy briefs, and presentations
• conduct literature reviews and evidence synthesis as required
• document implementation experiences, adaptations, successes, challenges, and lessons learned
• contribute to the project learning agenda and synthesis of findings across districts and implementation phases
• work closely with provincial and district health authorities, DHA teams, facility managers, quality-assurance personnel, and health information/data teams
• build constructive working relationships with field teams while maintaining the quality and independence of monitoring activities.

Requirements:

You should have:

• Master’s degree in Public Health, Health Policy & Management, Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Social Sciences, or a related field
• minimum three years of relevant experience in monitoring and evaluation, health systems research, implementation research, quality improvement, or public health programmes
• demonstrated experience developing indicators, measurement frameworks, M&E systems, and field-based assessment approaches
• experience with government health systems, large-scale health programmes, or quality-of-care initiatives is an advantage
• strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with sound report writing and presentation ability
• excellent understanding of M&E and health-system performance measurement
• strong interpersonal, stakeholder-management, and field coordination skills
• ability to work independently and within multidisciplinary teams
• flexibility to work in diverse field settings, with willingness to travel frequently across districts in Punjab, including rural locations.

Comprehensive employment reference checks will be conducted.