HEAD OF SCIENTIFIC AI ENABLEMENT

Scripps Research • San Diego, CA

4d • Hybrid

About The Position

As the Head of Scientific AI Enablement, you will serve as the primary liaison between research labs and other technical teams, driving the adoption of AI/ML tools and techniques across scientific workflows. You will connect individual laboratories, consortia, and core facilities with High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure, removing barriers and accelerating AI-driven discovery. In this hands-on role, you will collaborate closely with HPC engineers, software platform teams, and research scientists to scale AI/ML initiatives and embed cutting-edge AI capabilities into computational workflows.

Requirements

• PhD in Computer Science, Chemistry, Biology or other Life Science required.
• 10+ years working at the interface between experimental biology/chemistry and bioinformatic/computational methods.
• Exposure to one or more modern predictive system in research. (Alphafold, etc)
• Advanced knowledge of one or more scripting languages such as Python, Bash, or R
• Experience in designing and optimizing systems for running modern AI workloads including parallelizing strategies, workload orchestration, and job scheduling
• A strong skillset in working with on-premise HPC environments, including scheduling, automation, distributed storage systems, and container technologies. (Singularity, Kubernetes for HPC, Ansible)
• Exposure to large scale SQL and NoSQL systems a plus.
• Experience in interacting with cloud compute infrastructure.
• While subject to change based on business needs, this is an on-campus position requiring a minimum of 4 days per week working onsite from our La Jolla campus, with flexibility to work 1 day per week remotely from home.

Responsibilities

• Leveraging AI tools, work with labs to develop proof of concept data analysis methods
• Provide guidance to research labs on how to best leverage AI tools for data analysis
• Collaborate across the IT and software development teams to incorporate data analysis methods and new AI skills to enable re-use and automation
• Design, develop, test, and maintain pipelines for running state-of-the-art publicly available predictive models on-premise and in the cloud.
• Maintain a presence on the bleeding edge of predictive modelling, ingesting and testing relevant models as they emerge.
• Interact with stakeholders to understand their goals and develop systems that provide rigorous, reproducible, and efficient results.
• Work closely with HPC and IT Services team members to ensure compatibility, scalability, and security.
• Translate stakeholder requirements into actionable plans with realistic timelines given available resources and project bandwidth.
• Develop and maintain documentation of systems and processes.
• Provide methods and clarity for publications of results where relevant.
• Details of established essential functions for this position will be addressed/discussed during the interview process.

Benefits

• Employer Contributed Retirement Plan – Depending on eligibility, employees receive an employer contributed retirement plan (no employee contribution required) and the option to contribute to a 403(b) (which is similar to a 401(k) using your own pre or post-tax dollars)
• Full Suite of Health and Welfare plans including three medical plan options (including an HSA available option), dental, vision, life insurance, disability, EAP and more
• Access to Flexible Spending Accounts (Medical/Dependent Care)
• Competitive vacation and sick leave policies
• Free, on-site parking

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree