Senior Technical Health Writer
ICF International seeks a Senior Health Technical Writer to work on the USAID-funded Infectious Disease Detection and Surveillance (IDDS) project based in Rockville, MD. ICF is open to this being either a remote or hybrid position.
IDDS provides technical assistance to governments in over 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia to strengthen their health systems’ ability to quickly detect and stop the spread of infectious and drug-resistant pathogens that pose a major threat to public health. A primary focus of the project is to develop the capacity of laboratories in our partner countries to provide safe, timely, and accurate diagnostic testing. We also help partner countries set up disease surveillance systems that can effectively record cases and quickly analyze and report data—so health officials and other key decision makers have the information they need to take action and help make the world safer for us all.
Some of our most important deliverables include the IDDS annual report, quarterly reports, and annual work plan. The technical writer will lead the development of these reports, provide writing and editing support for a range of other internal and public-facing products, and contribute to proposals.
Key Responsibilities:
-Serve as lead writer for the IDDS annual report, quarterly reports, and annual work plan, coordinating with multiple contributors to ensure one voice, strong readability, completeness, and accuracy.
-Review, rewrite, and edit technical reports, PowerPoint presentations, web copy, emails, and other deliverables as needed.
-Develop technical briefs by synthesizing and analyzing program technical activities.
-Conduct reviews of project deliverables written by others for errors in grammar, punctuation, syntax, and spelling and make corrections; provide suggestions on how to improve clarity and readability.
-Verify facts as needed, check copy for style, readability, and agreement with editorial policy.
-Communicate and coordinate with technical experts, writers, editors, and publishers to finalize deliverables.
-Work on multiple deliverables in various stages of completion simultaneously.
-Support the development of peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations, success stories, blogs and other thought leadership materials working with project leadership and staff.
-Write original summaries or abstracts for longer documents.
-Provide basic design, formatting, and layout functions for technical documents; oversee more complex formatting and production of publications.
-Contribute to and may lead and technical proposal writing, incorporating inputs from other staff members.
-Bachelor’s degree in journalism, English, or related field required; master’s degree preferred
-Minimum of five years of experience as a writer or editor in a professional setting, or as a proposal or technical writer
-Demonstrated experience ensuring documents are written at a level appropriate for the audience
-Strong familiarity with public health, especially epidemiology
-Familiarity with publicly- funded international relief and development projects, especially for public health; familiarity with USAID preferred
-Familiarity with style manuals, especially Chicago Manual of Style, but also the American Psychological Association, Associated Press, and client-specific styles
-Mastery of English grammar, punctuation, and spelling; French skills a plus
-Excellent time management skills and experience working in a fast-paced environment
Professional Skills:
-Technical and proposal writing
-Impeccable copy editing
-Substantive editing and rewriting
-Ability to summarize complex documents accurately and clearly in abstract or digest form
-Experience distilling complex technical information into plain language
-Ability to format documents using Microsoft Office programs in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel
-Excellent attention to detail
-Highly organized
-Familiarity with statistical writing and editing
-Familiarity with SharePoint/ MS Teams
-Ability to mentor others to improve staff writing skills
-Ability to work collaboratively with diverse teams and team members