Deputy Director, AI4Science, Center of Digital and Data Excellence

PATH current employees – please log in and apply Here

PATH is a global nonprofit dedicated to achieving health equity. With more than 40 years of experience forging multisector partnerships and with expertise in science, economics, technology, advocacy, and dozens of other specialties, PATH develops and scales up innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing heath challenges.

The Deputy Director/Lead (appointment based on experience) will work across many initiatives, but with a particular focus (in years 1 & 2) on AI solutions for accelerating biomedical hypothesis generation and validation. The topics you’ll apply your skills to include vaccine development, vector control technologies, and drug development. You will provide in-depth scientific and technical expertise, plan and lead the execution of research programmes, and contribute to the translation of outputs into global public goods. This is a technical role, and you will need to be comfortable leading the technical components of our research, which aims to develop, evaluate, and deploy AI to accelerate biomedical science.

This role requires a dynamic ‘jack of all trades’ (look up with full expression!) with a robust network, a track record of academic contributions, and a strategic vision to expand PATH’s AI4Science portfolio. This role is expected to build a team (both in terms of directly managed staff and fractional matrix-ed staff with subject matter expertise) that collaborates cross-divisionally on key AI4Science projects – in essence, not a standalone programme, but rather an enabling function that works through our existing footprint. If you’ve ever wanted to ‘build your own thing’, but with the benefit of a large and incredibly well-established organisation behind you… then this might be the job for you!

Responsibilities:

Research & Technical Leadership

• Lead and contribute to research activities across multiple projects (supported by your peers in the AI team leadership, and under the mentorship of the Chief AI Officer), including, for example:

I. Overseeing a programme of work with a frontier lab on how agentic AI workflows can be used to identify novel correlates of protection to accelerate vaccine development.

II. Designing programmes of work with an academic lab on therapeutics design spanning AMR, mental health, etc.

III. Creating an evaluation framework and benchmarking workflow in the context of open-ended tasks, such as creative hypothesis generation.

IV. Academic thought leadership around AI for clinical trials, the regulation of AI in upstream tasks (esp. around dual-purpose technologies), etc.

• Lead the planning around, and where necessary operationalise the use of quantitative research methods (e.g., experimental study design, benchmarking framework design, statistical analysis, etc.) and technical AI methods (e.g., agent architecture design and development, prompt engineering, evaluation method development, etc.) independently and in collaboration with our partners.
• Lead technical writing of study protocols, reports, and peer-reviewed publications.
• Develop collaborations around the portfolio with academic, industry, and other partners.

Project Execution & Programme Coordination

• Serve as the responsible party for initiative-led projects, ensuring compliance with PATH and donor research ethics and data protection standards, as well as the timely delivery of outputs. The deputy director will also be the primary point of contact for donors and partners on initiative-led projects.
• Collaborate with project finance managers to ensure day-to-day project spending matches the budgeted spend, escalate issues to the Chief AI Officer, and ensure timely inputs to initiative-wide budgeting exercises.
• Collaborate with the other AI Deputy Directors (Health and Regulatory Policy), as well as the AI programme manager, and positively contribute to the overall culture and control environment for the initiative.

Management and Mentorship

• Matrix manage staff with responsibilities on projects that the DD (AI4Science) is leading.
• Provide academic mentorship to peers and more junior staff members in the AI initiative to cultivate their skills.
• By year 2, having partnered with the Chief AI Officer to successfully secure additional funding, hire and manage a dedicated AI4Science team.

Programme-Wide Responsibilities

• Contribute to the development of the organisation’s AI4Science strategy.
• Contribute to, and where appropriate, lead business development activities.
• As required, stand in for the Chief AI Officer at internal and external meetings.
• Contribute to PATH’s thought leadership in AI and global health-relevant product development.
• Contribute to other AI4Science projects that are not led by the initiative, but where subject matter expertise has been requested by another team at PATH.

Required Skills & Experience:

• PhD (in a relevant subject) with significant (5+ years) research experience, or industry expertise in a bioscience field.
• Strong coding skills, as necessary to carry out independent AI research, including experience piloting AI/ML models and agentic workflows.
• Expertise in one or more of the following areas: natural language processing, AI benchmarking and evaluation, agentic AI architectures, immunology, or AI applied to any biomedical field.
• Experience in Delivery… The successful candidate will have experience in successfully managing multiple (more than two in parallel) large (> $5m) programmes, with a substantial scientific impact and a demonstrable public profile for the work.
• An Entrepreneurial Approach…We’re looking for individuals who are comfortable writing proposals themselves, finding and drawing on the available internal and external subject matter experts, and leveraging their networks of donor connections to build a pipeline.
• Navigating Large, Complex Organisations… PATH has a few thousand employees, spread across 70+ countries, all working to deliver high-quality work at a rapid pace. To succeed in this role, you will need to have excellent communication, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills to be able to build a shared vision of success and motivate very busy people to support you in delivering on the institution’s AI goals.
• Being Comfortable with Uncertainty… The global health ecosystem is changing rapidly, and largely due to forces outside of the control of any individual development organisation. Taking calculated risks based on the best available evidence and persevering when things get difficult are the kinds of behavioural traits that will be critical for success in this role.
• A Vision For Success… Given the opportunity that this role affords, i.e., to build out the AI4Science team, we’re looking for someone with a clear sense of what that future state is that they’re trying to develop (and a robust justification for why that vision is the right one!).

We know great candidates won’t always meet every listed qualification. Research shows that some groups, on average, are more likely to self-select out if they feel they don’t meet all requirements. If you’re excited about the role and think you’d be a good fit, we encourage you to apply.

To be selected, you must have legal authorization to work in the UK.

Read Full Description