Director of Research Technologies

NGRF ( Nova Gen Research Fund) is a new data science collaboration hub including multiple labs and centers. The Director of Research Technologies position will focus on the Polus Center for Data Research (PCDR) and have responsibilities across all scientific initiatives. PCDR is a cutting‑edge scientific center that accelerates biomedical research using artificial intelligence and other novel technologies. PCDR fosters an open‑source community and supports secure interoperable platforms, applications/tools, training, collaboration, and data to increase the aggregate rate of scientific advancement.

This role will provide strategic oversight and technical leadership to build, evolve, and manage a collaboration hub and digital platforms that support the needs of multidisciplinary researchers. The Director will be responsible for aligning the organization’s capabilities with emerging scientific priorities, driving infrastructure modernization, leading cloud transformation, ensuring cybersecurity compliance, and cultivating external partnerships to expand the center’s reach and impact.

The Director will build and sustain PDCR as a premier center that preserves and advances critical open‑source tools, workflows, and data processing pipelines, especially where government programs have ended their support. You will steer strategy, shepherd community governance, secure diversified funding, and ensure long‑term maintainability so that essential software remains available, interoperable, and trustworthy for the research community.

Our vision is a future where data, workflows, analysis, standards, and tools can be seamlessly used, exchanged, and scaled to empower scientists at every level. Our core values are Accessibility, Enabling Collaboration, and Innovation. If these values energize you, this may be the place for you.

Organization Strategy and Stewardship:
Define and execute the long‑term vision for NGRF, aligned with the evolving needs of translational research. Own the NGRF mission, scope, and success boundaries. Publish a Center Charter for PCDR, multi‑year roadmap, and sustainability plan that balances new capability with preservation mandates. Decide when to build, partner, or adopt. Prioritize FAIR, CARE, and MOST principles for data, models, analyses, and workflows.

Lead technology modernization initiatives including cloud adoption, AI/ML infrastructure, and platform resilience.

Community Discovery and Validation:
Run a learning plan with explicit hypotheses for user needs, value, adoption, and impact. Establish advisory councils and design‑partner cohorts across academia, industry, and public agencies with clear success criteria. Use public requests for comment, usability testing, and field pilots to validate direction and reduce risk.

Program Execution and Quality:
Design and manage a scalable, secure research computing environment including cloud platforms, high‑performance computing (HPC), and data pipelines. Guide delivery of interoperable tools and reproducible pipelines using modern environments such as Jupyter, RStudio, and Visual Studio Code. Maintain a dual‑track backlog, versioning policy, documentation standards, and observability across repos and services. Embed provenance, lineage, and reproducibility safeguards in every release.

Drive continuous improvement in infrastructure performance, cost optimization, and service delivery metrics.

Preservation and Continuity of Critical Software:
Catalog PCDR at‑risk tools and pipelines from sun setting government efforts. Lead stabilization, containerization, emulation, or refactoring as needed. Stand up a code custody program with mirrors, archival artifacts, automated builds, dependency vulnerability monitoring, and migration playbooks.

Funding and Long‑Term Sustainability:
Operate a stage‑gated investment model from Explore to Validate to Build to Scale. Develop a diversified funding portfolio that can include federal and philanthropic grants, sponsored maintenance, service agreements, and community contribution programs. Manage total cost to sustain, staffing…