Faculty Administrative Assistant - 140249

Physics is a prominent, highly-ranked, and research-intensive department at UC San Diego, with 400+ employees, annual expenditures of roughly $58M, annual course enrollments greater than 18K, and over 140K square feet of space in 8 campus buildings. Research and instructional activity occurs over an unusually broad range of disciplinary areas, including: astrophysics & astronomy, atomic/molecular physics, biophysics, condensed matter physics, controlled fusion & plasma physics, elementary particle physics, nanoscience, and nonlinear dynamics. Research activity occurs both on-campus and in multiple off-campus locations, including: U.S. National Laboratories such as Argonne, Lawrence Livermore, and LANL (Los Alamos National Lab); observatories throughout the world; Antarctica; and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. Research collaborations frequently involve other U.S. and international universities, National Labs, research institutes such as The Scripps Research Institute and the Salk Institute, and/or companies such as SAIC and General Atomics. Sponsored research activities are funded by 40-50 different funding agencies, including NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD, and AFOSR, and include complex multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional, and multi-PI awards.

Instruction occurs at multiple levels. With approximately 200 students, the doctoral program has a flexible and broad-based curriculum which leads to a Ph.D. in Physics or Physics with optional specializations in Biophysics, Computational Science or Quantitative Biology. With nearly 400 Physics majors, the undergraduate major program is one of the most productive in the nation. Students may obtain B.S. degrees with optional specializations in Astrophysics, Biophysics, Computational Physics, Earth Sciences, or Materials Physics, or B.A. degrees with an optional specialization in Secondary Education. A special 5-year contiguous program leading to a B.S./M.S. in Materials Physics is also available. Lower division courses allow students to satisfy their general education requirements and serve as foundational courses for students majoring in the sciences and engineering.

Under the direction of the Physics Department Business Manager, the incumbent is responsible for providing administrative support for the faculty's University instruction, service, and research programs. The incumbent serves as an administrative liaison with the Physics Department central units, other campus offices, and external organizations for the administrative management of faculty research programs. Additionally, the incumbent supports organizational efforts in implementing changes in procedures to optimize the performance of research groups. This includes enhancing the research groups' ability to provide appropriate written material and meet administrative requirements, both within and outside UC.

Utilizing initiative, resourcefulness, and sound judgment, the incumbent adeptly handles a diverse range of administrative duties for research lab groups, which include graduate/undergraduate students, postdoctoral fellows, project/research scientists, lab research staff, and Principal Investigators (PI's). These responsibilities span lab orders, travel coordination, reimbursement processing, instructional support, and more.

Collaborating with Departmental Research Administrators, the incumbent engages in activities related to purchasing, travel arrangements, commitments, and addressing invoicing inquiries.

Independently managing a substantial volume of domestic and international visitors, the incumbent coordinates all logistics, encompassing meeting organization, accommodations, and reimbursements. This requires a high level of organizational skill and attention to detail.

The incumbent serves as the coordinator for faculty events and functions, and as a backup for seminars, colloquia, and department events.

The incumbent assigns tasks and supports the optimization of student workers' performance within the administrative framework.

• Occasional evenings and weekends, and overtime may be required.

• Demonstrated experience providing administrative support within an academic department with familiarity and reasonable understanding of related scientific terms and concepts.

• Experience in providing support to multiple individuals with competing demands.

• Demonstrated experience in interpreting and applying complex rules and regulations.

• Experience and skill to work independently or as part of a group.

• Experience and skill to interpret and apply complex rules and regulations.

• Excellent editorial correction skills of technical manuscripts and proposals.

• Demonstrated experience and skill to work under the pressured conditions of a centralized, production-oriented atmosphere, to prioritize/ organize workload and complete critical tasks in a timely manner.

• Strong written communication skills. Ability to adapt writing style as needed. Ability to write concisely and persuasively and to summarize information.

• Strong organization, negotiation, and decision-making skills.

• Ability to maintain the highest level of confidentiality.

• Excellent interpersonal skills; effectively interact with senior faculty, research staff, co-workers, as well as senior representatives of non-university agencies using skills in diplomacy and tact.

• Ability to independently exercise judgment and make problem-solving decisions in unique as well as everyday situations.

• Patience and verbal skills to communicate abstract concepts.

• Excellent computer skills (i.e., Word, Excel, Acrobat, EndNote).

• Skill to communicate well with non-native speakers of English from various cultural backgrounds.

• Skill to maintain and retrieve accurate records.

• Background check required.