Project Assistant

About the role

The DataLab Business Units (BU) runs two core services for the Centre's research community: a shared high-performance computing (HPC) service with GPU/CPU compute and storage, and a central research data platform (the databank) — a governed platform consolidating the Centre's research datasets. The Project Assistant will support the DataLab BU end-to-end on databank project coordination, HPC-related operational matters, and general BU internal tasks. The work is procedure-driven, operating on written SOPs, checklists and runbooks. Detailed technical work is supported by external service providers; no prior HPC or database administration experience is required — full structured training is provided.

Key responsibilities

• Maintain the project tracker and milestone plan; chase deliverables and open actions with internal stakeholders and the external service provider until closure
• Schedule meetings and prepare meeting agendas, minutes and action logs; keep project documentation organised and version-controlled
• Coordinate testing and acceptance logistics per the project plan — schedule test windows, log issues through the provider's support channels, track resolution to closure
• Assist in preparing operations-readiness material (runbooks, checklists, access matrices, service notes) for handover
• Process access applications per the written SOP (completeness check → approval chain → account creation with the provider → notification to applicants); maintain the user register; deactivate leavers
• Handle support requests through the ticket system: triage, log, resolve where the SOP covers it, escalate to the provider with clear context, follow up to closure
• Run routine health/utilization checks per the runbook; act on alerts and outages as the runbook prescribes; coordinate planned maintenance windows with the provider
• Extract utilisation figures, maintain the report data, produce the monthly management report, and draft the observations section with the supervisor
• Keep BU registers, dashboards and contact records current; support meeting logistics, correspondence and documentation
• Keep SOPs, runbooks, checklists and templates accurate and up to date; propose improvements where a recurring step can be standardised

About you

• Bachelor's degree in any discipline (IT / Computer Science / Data / Information Systems / Engineering or a related discipline)
• Strong planning, accuracy and follow-through; comfortable maintaining trackers, registers and records
• Reliable executor of documented procedures — follows the SOP, and asks rather than improvises
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint and common office/online collaboration tools
• Strong communication skills (English plus Cantonese or Mandarin) and the ability to work effectively with researchers, clinicians, technical staff, internal stakeholders and external service providers
• Professional handling of confidential material; trustworthy and discreet
• Desirable: Exposure to a research, university or IT-service environment
• Desirable: Project-coordination / PMO support experience (trackers, minutes, follow-up)
• Desirable: Basic technical familiarity (e.g. command line, ticketing tools, monitoring dashboards, Git)
• Desirable: Interest in research computing, data platforms, or service operations as a career direction

About us

In collaboration with CityUHK, the University of Oxford and Karolinska Institutet, the Hong Kong Centre for Cerebro-cardiovascular Health Engineering (COCHE) was established with the support of the ITC-InnoHK Programme to develop new ways to tackle cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is the world's leading cause of morbidity and mortality. COCHE focuses on developing innovative technologies such as flexible and wearable devices, biomedical and molecular imaging, nano-biosensing, micro-robotics, healthcare AI systems, and other ground-breaking methods to enable early prevention, diagnosis and intervention of the disease. The COCHE research centre is located in Hong Kong Science Park.