Scientific Director, Youth Safety & Wellbeing

American Psychological Association•Washington, DC

10d•$131,000 - $204,000•Remote

About The Position

The American Psychological Association (APA) is establishing the Center for Behavioral Science and AI (CBSAI) to address the impact of AI systems on users, with an initial focus on Youth Safety & Wellbeing. The Scientific Director will provide scientific leadership for this priority area, chairing and managing the Youth Safety & Wellbeing Scientific Advisory Group. This role ensures that the Center's specifications and public guidance are scientifically rigorous and defensible. The Director must have experience leading groups of senior academic and clinical experts, engaging them in scientific discussions, and providing independent scientific leadership to AI industry partners, funders, and other stakeholders. The position requires deep subject-matter expertise in psychological science relevant to youth safety and well-being, and the ability to make sound decisions in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. The CBSAI aims to integrate psychological science into the AI ecosystem, translating behavioral science into products that mediate human interaction. APA believes AI should support human thriving, and the Center will bridge academic research and real-world impact through research, advocacy, education, and collaboration. The Center is in its start-up phase, building its founding team, beginning with scientific leadership for Youth Safety & Wellbeing.

Requirements

Ph.D. in a relevant field (e.g., developmental or clinical psychology, public health, human-computer interaction, cognitive/behavioral science, or a related discipline), with an active or recent research record in youth development, media/technology effects, or a closely related area.
Working knowledge of, and demonstrated engagement with, AI systems — sufficient to inform the translation of scientific findings into technical specifications and to engage credibly with engineering and product teams.
Established, recognized standing in the youth safety/wellbeing research field, evidenced by publications, leadership roles, and/or peer recognition at a level that supports serving as a facilitator to senior Scientific Advisory members.
Scientific rigor paired with pragmatism: able to set a defensible evidentiary bar and act on it without requiring full field consensus.
Strong ability to build relationships: can represent CBSAI credibly with senior academics, AI-company leadership, funders, and policymakers alike.
Demonstrated moral and scientific integrity: a track record of holding independent positions under commercial or institutional pressure.
Serves as a connector: Strong network across academic, clinical, industry, and policy communities working on youth safety and technology — knows who is doing credible work and who else to bring in.
Comfortable operating at start-up speed in a newly formed, pilot-phase organization with evolving processes and limited infrastructure.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate scientific nuance for engineering, policy, and public audiences.

Nice To Haves

Prior experience chairing, serving on, or otherwise running a scientific advisory board, review panel, or similarly convened expert body preferred.

Responsibilities

Chair and manage the Youth Safety & Wellbeing Scientific Advisory: set agendas, recruit and steward members, and run the body as a genuine peer-level scientific forum rather than an advisory formality.
Serve as CBSAI's credible scientific face for this priority area — recognized by, and able to recruit from, the researchers the field already looks to.
Maintain a broad, current personal network across academia, clinical practice, and industry research on youth development, media, and technology — know who is doing rigorous work and who else to call.
Own the Specifications workstream for Youth Safety & Wellbeing: translating behavioral science into useable specifications for engineering and product teams.
Translate scientific evidence into specific, engineer-ready product and design requirements, in partnership with Center staff.
Set the scientific bar for when available evidence supports action, balancing rigor with the need to respond to emerging challenges in a rapidly evolving field. Comfortable making evidence-informed recommendations without waiting for definitive academic consensus, while maintaining a transparent and defensible scientific rationale.
Serve as scientific reviewer and sign-off authority for Public Guidance deliverables (practitioner guides, public education materials, policy recommendations) prior to release, ensuring accuracy and rigor.
Partner with Center staff on cross-workstream questions where a Topic produces deliverables in both workstreams.
Hold the line on scientific conclusions and methodology against commercial, reputational, and/or funder pressure, consistent with CBSAI's firewall commitments (AI-company partners may weigh in on relevance and factual accuracy — never on findings or conclusions).
Flag independence or firewall concerns to the Executive Director.
Represent CBSAI's science externally at major convenings, funder and industry conversations, and public forums (e.g., high-profile global and industry gatherings).
Build and sustain the relationships that keep CBSAI credible with the scientific field, AI companies, and funders simultaneously.
Directly supervise the Product Lead and help define how the Specifications workstream team grows.
Serve as the working model for how future priority-area Scientific Leads are hired and structured as CBSAI adds priority areas.
Some domestic and international travel to represent CBSAI at major scientific, policy, and industry convenings, Scientific Advisory meetings, and academic conferences.
Other Duties as Assigned