Director, Data Science

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
 

Grade: Management_Executive 612

Pay Range: $163,200.00 - $293,800.00

Job Description

The Director, Data Science leads a team of data scientists and analysts to develop AI/ML-powered models that drive real-time decision-making in faculty workflows. This role focuses on reducing manual effort and “administrivia” in academic processes by supporting building and implementing predictive and prescriptive systems to provide personalized interventions, enabling faculty to act with precision and efficiency, while reducing “decision fatigue”.

This position plays a critical role in building WGU’s Decision Intelligence capability and will serve as a thought partner and subject matter expert in the integration of machine learning models into university operations. With WGU’s recent adoption of the Decision Intelligence platform, this leader will work to unlock its potential and drive automation and simulation-based decision-making across the academic experience.

The Director partners with stakeholders across Academic Delivery, Schools, Product, MLOps, and other teams to ensure solutions are not only accurate but embedded into the systems faculty and students use daily. This role is responsible for shaping the vision of AI-driven decision support, leading technical development, and ensuring continuous learning through faculty feedback loops.

Primary Responsibilities

• Develops and implements an integrated analytics strategy, including decision models, simulations, and recommender systems, to enhance faculty decision-making, reduce decision fatigue, and support personalized academic journeys, while aligning with institutional goals and stakeholder needs.
• Owns a strategic roadmap for applying AI/ML and simulation-based tools to support continuous improvement of decision intelligence recommendations that support faculty and other student-facing roles and reduce administrative burden.
• Translates institutional priorities into intelligent systems that anticipate faculty needs and streamline outreach to students.
• Acts as a thought leader in applied AI, shaping how emerging technologies are leveraged to enable data-informed actions across academic operations.
• Collaborates with business partners to define and track objectives and success metrics that assess the real-world impact of model recommendations on faculty productivity and student outcomes.
• Leads the design, development, and production deployment of machine learning models that support timely and personalized faculty interventions.
• Coordinates with product, engineering, and analytics teams to ensure model outputs are dynamically integrated into other products, tools, or algorithms that depend on real-time data and recommendations.
• Partners with Product, Business, and MLOps teams to embed models into tools and workflows that reduce the need for manual dashboard review and drive efficient, data-backed actions. Ensures that models are up and running when integrated into workflows.
• Partners with faculty and operational teams to capture behavioral data and feedback on model-driven decisions, enabling continuous model refinement and performance improvement.
• Leads, mentors, and develops a high-performing team of data scientists and analysts, cultivating technical excellence and ownership. Actively attracts, retains, and develops top talent to ensure long-term team strength and capability.
• Fosters a cultu