Tucson Medical Center

Key Responsibilities

• • Provides enterprise‑wide executive leadership for all clinical research at TMC Health, playing a central role in the development, stabilization, and growth of strategy, priorities, and growth in alignment with TMC Health’s mission, quality goals, and strategic plan.
• • Develops and executes a multi‑year clinical research strategic plan, prioritizing infrastructure development, funding diversification, operational sustainability, and investigator support.
• • Serves as executive sponsor for key clinical research initiatives, ensuring alignment with clinical, quality, operational, leadership, and actively seeks and cultivates strategic partnerships with collaborators to expand research opportunities and strengthen program capabilities.
• • Represents TMC Health externally with sponsors, academic institutions, funding agencies, and regulatory bodies.
• • Establishes and oversees research governance structures, policies, and standardized operating procedures.
• • Provides executive oversight of external Institutional Review Board (IRB) engagement and human subject protection processes.
• • Ensures full compliance with all applicable federal, state, and international regulations, including FDA, HHS / OHRP, NIH, Good Clinical Practice (GCP), and International Council for Harmonization (ICH) standards, in addition to external surveyors such as Joint Commission, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC).
• • Certifies institutional compliance to federal, corporate, and private funding agencies.
• • Partners with Clinical Research Directors, Primary Investigators, and Clinical Research staff to assess needs and to develop a strategic plan for standardized operational growth.
• • Partners with Clinical Research Directors on research financial performance, including budgeting, forecasting, cost recovery, and contract negotiations.
• • Drives operational efficiency, scalability, and standardization across research programs and clinical sites.
• • Utilizes dashboards and metrics to evaluate program performance and guide strategic decision‑making.
• • Leads institutional strategy for extramural funding, industry partnerships, investigator‑initiated research, and collaborative studies, in close coordination with Research Development, Finance, Clinical Operations, and Compliance.
• • Guides development of competitive grant applications and industry trial proposals.
• • Builds and sustains relationships with sponsors, CROs, foundations, and government agencies.
• • Supports investigators in study design, data analysis, dissemination, and publication of research findings.
• • Provides executive oversight of Directors, Managers, and staff within the clinical research enterprise.
• • Partners with the Clinical Research Directors to Build and sustain a high‑performing, multidisciplinary research workforce through recruitment, coaching, professional development, and performance management.
• • Fosters an organizational culture of research grounded in integrity, accountability, collaboration, diversity, and continuous improvement.
• • Serves as executive chair or sponsor for research governance committees (e.g., Research Resource Review Committee / 3RC).
• • Presents clinical research metrics and strategic updates to the Medical Executive Committee (MEC), Graduate Medical Education Committee (GMEC), Board‑level committees, and other governance bodies as appropriate.
• • Supports Directors to operationalize research with Quality, Compliance, Legal, Finance, and Operations leaders to integrate research safely and efficiently into clinical workflows.
• • Maintains confidentiality and protects sensitive patient, research, proprietary, and personnel information.
• • Adheres to all organizational safety standards, policies, and TMC values.
• • Performs related duties as assigned.