Research Assistant (SRI) - Evaluative Clinical Sciences - Regular Full-Time 2026-19071

Hours: 37.5 per week; Monday-Friday from 9 am to 5 pm, some flexibility required.

Location: On-site at either Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Bayview Campus or the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario (25 Morton Shulman Ave, Toronto, ON M3M 0B1)

Job Overview

The Sunnybrook Research Institute, Department of Psychiatry, affiliated with the University of Toronto, is seeking an energetic and efficient Research Assistant in the Suicide Prevention Research Collaborative (SPRC) lab. The successful candidate will primarily support StratCAN, a newly funded, CIHR multi-year mixed-methods study that maps provincial and territorial suicide prevention efforts across Canada and develops a standardized evaluation framework to inform a national suicide prevention strategy. The project brings together a large team of national and international experts, including researchers, clinicians, policymakers, Indigenous partners, and people with lived experience. This individual will report to Dr. Mark Sinyor and work closely with the lab manager and other research assistants. They will also have the opportunity to engage in and support other ongoing projects in the lab.

https://sunnybrook.ca/research/content/?page=spl-about

Required Qualifications:

• An Honours bachelor’s degree in psychology, public health, social work, or a related area (a master’s degree is an asset), with preference given to individuals with at least 1-2 years of research experience in public health, health services research, epidemiology, psychology and/or psychiatry.
• Familiarity with qualitative and/or mixed-methods research, including study design (e.g., developing interview and focus group guides, sampling, and recruitment) and common analytic approaches (e.g., reflexive thematic analysis, content analysis).
• Experience using qualitative data analysis software such as NVivo, Dedoose, ATLAS.ti, or MAXQDA.
• Strong project management and organizational skills, including coordinating meetings across time zones, tracking timelines and deliverables, and maintaining project documentation.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to correspond professionally with researchers, government partners, and community stakeholders.
• Ability to work independently as well as within a collaborative environment.

Assets:

• Experience conducting literature reviews, scoping or systematic reviews, or environmental scans.
• Experience facilitating or co-facilitating focus groups or interviews, particularly on sensitive topics using trauma-informed approaches.
• Competence with data collection, management and statistical software such as SPSS, R, and REDCap.
• Experience with handling multiple research tasks within projects such as maintaining research integrity, protocol writing, recruitment, data collection and data entry.
• Experience in conducting chart reviews and database management.
• Proficiency in French is considered an asset

Responsibilities

The successful candidate will primarily support the StratCAN project with responsibilities including:

• Contributing to a comprehensive environmental scan of provincial and territorial suicide prevention efforts, including policy documents, program reports, and academic and grey literature; extracting and charting data.
• Preparing and submitting Research Ethics Board applications and amendments.
• Assisting with the development of focus group and interview guides, sampling frames, and recruitment materials; coordinating participant outreach, scheduling, and consent.
• Supporting data collection, transcription management, and qualitative coding and analysis.
• Assisting with the development and administration of a multi-round Delphi survey.
• Coordinating team communications, including scheduling meetings, preparing agendas and minutes, managing email correspondence, and tracking action items across a national and international team.
• Assisting with knowledge translation activities, including supporting the project website, preparing presentations, reports, and manuscripts.

In addition, the successful candidate will have the opportunity to engage in and support other projects led by Dr. Mark Sinyor, including:

• Assist with MyFilm - a group-based intervention using Inside Out 1 & 2 to teach mental health literacy, CBT-informed coping, social-emotional skills, and narrative learning.
  • This may include assisting the Clinical Research Coordinator with recruitment, patient communication and appointment scheduling, as well as collecting survey data and conducting open-ended interviews.
• Assist with the Papageno Videos Project – Media Stories of Survival as a Means of Reducing Suicide Risk in Psychiatric Patients
  • This may include assisting with recruitment, liaising with study participants and collecting survey data and conducting open-ended interviews.
• Continue our data collection project and retrospective chart review at the Office of the Chief Coroner (see “Coroner Studies” on our website).
  • This may include supporting the process of data transferring (data entry and post quality-checking), database construction and merging and data migration monitoring.
• Assist with our school-based trials.
  • This may include liaising with school administrators, consent, data collection, data analysis and manuscript writeup.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the principal investigator.
• Additional responsibilities may become available upon pending grant(s) notification.

To apply, please send a letter of interest and resume

We thank all applicants for their interest but only candidates short-listed for interview will be contacted.

Sunnybrook Research Institute is committed to providing accessible employment practices that are in compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). If you require accommodation for disability during any stage of the recruitment process, please indicate this in your cover letter.

Sunnybrook Research Institute is strongly committed to inclusion and diversity within its community and welcomes all applicants including but not limited to: visible minorities, all religions and ethnicities, persons with disabilities, 2SLGBTQ+ persons, and all others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas.