Research Reporting and Dashboarding Intern

Ready to turn raw campus data into real-world impact? The Reporting and Analytics Team within the Division of Research is looking for a curious, detail-oriented Undergraduate Intern to help shape how university research projects are tracked, processed, and visualized! This hands-on position will play a direct role in the end-to-end data lifecycle. The Intern will help build robust metadata frameworks, evaluate and improve data quality, process complex operational metrics, and design interactive dashboards that empower university leadership to make informed decisions.

Responsibilities:

Establish Metadata & Data Quality: Define metadata standards, data dictionaries, and automated validation rules to ensure the accuracy, consistency, and audit-readiness of division datasets.

Process & Automate Data Workflows: Audit and rebuild complex reporting and budget templates. You'll leverage modern techniques to eliminate manual bottlenecks, streamline logic, and make spreadsheets automated and error-free.

Build Executive Dashboards: Ingest and process raw research data, transforming it into clear, dynamic, and actionable visual reports and interactive dashboards (Excel and Smartsheet).

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work directly with team members to gather requirements for research tracking and translate complex data points into intuitive insights for division leaders.

Required Core Skills: 

• MS Excel Mastery:
• Proficiency with functions, filtering, pivot tables, and lookup formulas.
• Familiarity with VBA/Macros for spreadsheet automation and error-proofing.
• Data Quality & QA Mindset:
• Ability to perform data auditing, spot anomalies, and build validation checks to ensure high quality reporting.

• Data Modeling & Metadata Concepts: Basic understanding of data structures, relational tables, and metadata documentation.
• Project, Data Visualization & Analytics: 
• Exposure to Tableau.
• Experience or familiarity with Smartsheet for project tracking, automated workflows, and executive dashboard design.

Nice to have:

• Basic Scripting: Fundamental knowledge of SQL, Python, or R for basic data manipulation is a plus, but not required.