Director of Research, Weitzman Institute-Remote
About the role
The Weitzman Institute is a national leader in evidence-based, stakeholder-informed primary care innovation and transformation, serving over 2 million patients across all 50 U.S. states, DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam through partnerships with Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and other health systems.
Responsibilities
Develop and implement a strategic, forward-looking research and evaluation portfolio aligned with the Institute’s mission, organizational strategy, emerging health priorities, and the needs of safety-net populations.
Build a balanced portfolio of research, evaluation, and learning initiatives that advances scientific excellence while generating meaningful impact in practice and policy.
Identify emerging scientific, clinical, policy, and funding trends and position the Institute to respond strategically.
Evaluate potential opportunities and make recommendations regarding organizational priorities, investments, partnerships, and resource allocation.
Serve as a scientific and strategic thought partner to the Chief Scientific Officer and Institute leadership.
Ensure research activities are appropriately prioritized based on scientific merit, strategic alignment, organizational capacity, funding potential, impact, and sustainability.
Develop and execute a diversified, multi-year funding strategy and pipeline for the Institute’s research and evaluation portfolio.
Identify and pursue opportunities across government, philanthropy, private-sector, academic, health-system, and other mission-aligned funding sources.
Lead and contribute to competitive grant and contract proposals, including scientific strategy, proposal development, writing, budgeting, and supporting materials aligned with funder priorities.
Build and cultivate long-term relationships with current and prospective funders, including government agencies, foundations, corporations, academic institutions, health systems, and other strategic partners.
Develop strategic approaches to converting emerging opportunities and relationships into sustainable funded programs.
Partner with business development, finance, grants administration, contracts/legal, communications, and other teams to ensure successful development and execution of proposals and contracts.
Maintain and monitor the research funding portfolio to ensure alignment with organizational goals and strategic priorities.
Requirements
Education/Training: PhD, MD, or equivalent terminal degree required.
Experience: At least 10 years of relevant research experience, with demonstrated progression in research leadership, program development, and organizational responsibility.
Funding Strategy: Exceptional business development and relationship-building skills applied to research, including the ability to develop diversified funding strategies and convert relationships and opportunities into funded work.
Scholarly Leadership: Ability to establish and advance a compelling research agenda, generate high-quality publications, and elevate the Institute’s national scientific visibility and thought leadership.
Strategic Portfolio Management: Ability to assess opportunities, prioritize investments, allocate resources, manage risk, and make disciplined decisions about where the Institute should focus its research capacity.
Translation and Implementation: Ability to translate research, evaluation, and learning into practice, policy, organizational strategy, and scalable solutions.
People Leadership: Demonstrated ability to build, lead, retain, and develop high-performing multidisciplinary teams, including effective delegation, coaching, performance management, and professional development.
Mentorship and Sponsorship: Ability to cultivate emerging investigators and research professionals through mentorship, sponsorship, opportunities for leadership, and support for scholarly and career advancement.
Collaboration: Exceptional interpersonal and relationship-management skills, with the ability to build trust and work effectively with clinical, administrative, operational, academic, community, and external stakeholders.
Executive Communication: Ability to communicate complex scientific and strategic concepts clearly and persuasively to audiences ranging from researchers and clinicians to executives, funders, policymakers, and community partners.
Remote-First Leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead effectively in geographically distributed and remote environments through proactive communication, clear expectations, asynchronous collaboration, accountability, and intentional team-building.
Agility and Judgment: Capacity to manage ambiguity, competing priorities, rapidly changing circumstances, and high-stakes decisions while maintaining scientific rigor and organizational focus.
Project and Time Management: Strong organizational skills and demonstrated ability to manage multiple complex initiatives simultaneously while meeting deadlines and delivering high-quality results.
Community Engagement: Strong knowledge of and experience with meaningful community engagement and stakeholder-informed research.
Entrepreneurial Orientation: Demonstrated ability to identify emerging trends, opportunities, and partnerships and translate them into strategically aligned initiatives.
Qualifications
Deep research expertise in at least one substantive area, combined with sufficient breadth to engage across a range of health, healthcare, and policy issues.
Demonstrated ability to build and sustain a diversified portfolio of externally funded research, evaluation, and learning activities.
Experience cultivating relationships with funders, health systems, academic institutions, government agencies, philanthropy, private-sector organizations, and community partners.
A strong record of first- and/or senior-author publications and other scholarly dissemination.
Experience translating research and evaluation findings into practice, policy, organizational strategy, or systems change.
Demonstrated success developing and mentoring mid- and early-career researchers and building the next generation of research leaders.
Track record of leading multidisciplinary teams and fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, professional growth, and scientific excellence.
Comfort engaging with thought leaders, clients, executives, clinicians, community leaders, funders, and other decision-makers to represent Weitzman.
Entrepreneurial spirit and demonstrated ability to identify emerging opportunities and convert them into strategically aligned research initiatives.
Experience managing complex portfolios, competing priorities, and changing circumstances in a high-autonomy environment.
Experience leading geographically dispersed or remote-first teams is strongly preferred.
Skills & Abilities
Research leadership: Deep expertise in research methods and design, with strong quantitative and qualitative analytical skills and demonstrated ability to oversee rigorous, high-quality research and evaluation.
Funding strategy: Exceptional business development and relationship-building skills applied to research, including the ability to develop diversified funding strategies and convert relationships and opportunities into funded work.
Scholarly leadership: Ability to establish and advance a compelling research agenda, generate high-quality publications, and elevate the Institute’s national scientific visibility and thought leadership.
Strategic portfolio management: Ability to assess opportunities, prioritize investments, allocate resources, manage risk, and make disciplined decisions about where the Institute should focus its research capacity.
Translation and implementation: Ability to translate research, evaluation, and learning into practice, policy, organizational strategy, and scalable solutions.
People leadership: Demonstrated ability to build, lead, retain, and develop high-performing multidisciplinary teams, including effective delegation, coaching, performance management, and professional development.
Mentorship and sponsorship: Ability to cultivate emerging investigators and research professionals through mentorship, sponsorship, opportunities for leadership, and support for scholarly and career advancement.
Collaboration: Exceptional interpersonal and relationship-management skills, with the ability to build trust and work effectively with clinical, administrative, operational, academic, community, and external stakeholders.
Executive communication: Ability to communicate complex scientific and strategic concepts clearly and persuasively to audiences ranging from researchers and clinicians to executives, funders, policymakers, and community partners.
Remote-first leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead effectively in geographically distributed and remote environments through proactive communication, clear expectations, asynchronous collaboration, accountability, and intentional team-building.
Agility and judgment: Capacity to manage ambiguity, competing priorities, rapidly changing circumstances, and high-stakes decisions while maintaining scientific rigor and organizational focus.
Project and time management: Strong organizational skills and demonstrated ability to manage multiple complex initiatives simultaneously while meeting deadlines and delivering high-quality results.
Community engagement: Strong knowledge of and experience with meaningful community engagement and stakeholder-informed research.
Entrepreneurial orientation: Demonstrated ability to identify emerging trends, opportunities, and partnerships and translate them into strategically aligned initiatives.