Senior Program Officer, Clinical Immunology

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

The mission of Discovery & Translational Sciences (D&TS) is to catalyze innovation for the discovery and translation of transformative Global Health (GH) solutions. The primary role of D&TS is to support the foundation to achieve its ambitious equity goals as articulated in the objectives of the program strategies in GH and the Women’s Health Innovations program in Gender Equality (GE). For this, we exploit a unique advantage of the foundation in general and D&TS in particular: the ability to invest in high-risk initiatives with potential for truly disruptive change. We channel resources into creating more practical (affordable, scalable, deliverable) versions of existing tools, develop transformative new tools where none exist, and speed the translation of scientific discovery into implementable solutions, seeking better ways to evaluate and refine potential interventions before they enter costly and time-consuming late stage clinical trials. Key functions in support of this R&D mission include identifying and filling gaps in scientific knowledge, creating or implementing new technology platforms that can accelerate research in support of our goals, investing in potentially transformative ideas, continuous surveying of an ever-changing scientific and technological innovation space, and the fostering of an effective ecosystem of global health innovation, funding, and partnership to advance the foundation’s mission. Our intervention areas of focus include vaccines, biologics, drugs, and microbiome, as well as reproductive and sexual health.

The Vaccines and Biologics (VxBx) team has a large and growing portfolio of investments in innovative approaches and platforms aimed at the prevention of infectious diseases whose burdens are a major source and manifestation of inequity. As a functional team, we engage deeply and in a highly matrixed fashion with all our program strategy partners (e.g., Malaria, HIV, TB, Pneumonia and Pandemic Preparedness, Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases, Neglected Tropical Diseases, and Women’s Health Innovations) and other functional teams (e.g., Vaccine Development). Outside the foundation, we work closely with diverse external not-for-profit and for-profit partners including academia, biotech, pharma, government agencies, and other key funders.

Your Role 

As Senior Program Officer, Clinical Immunology in Vaccines & Biologics (VxBx), you contribute to a productive and collaborative culture of innovation to accelerate translation of research into practical health solutions. You are passionate about solving problems and addressing questions relevant to our mission. You interact actively with the international biomedical scientific and clinical research community and are expected to maintain a cutting-edge understanding of the field, provide deep subject matter expertise, act as thought-partner both internally and externally, and serve as timely sensor of novel opportunities that might be applied to our strategic priorities. You will interact closely with partners across diverse subject areas and bridge a wide range of expertise with agility, efficiency, and diplomacy in a highly dynamic environment.

What You’ll Do 

• Assist the Vaccines and Biologics Deputy Directors in developing strategies to address critical gaps in the Global Health vaccine and biologics portfolio and help to conceptualize, shape and drive initiatives in key strategy areas. 
• Develop, manage, and review a substantial portfolio of investments (grants, contracts, equity) including establishing, applying, and evaluating milestone-based performance objectives and helping to make go/no go decisions about specific projects and innovative product candidates.
• Identify and select partner institutions (e.g., academic, not-for-profit, biotech, pharma) as well as develop the scope and strategy for selected grants, investments, MoUs, and contracts.
• Actively cultivate and nurture existing external partnerships acr