Program Scientist, Polymaths
Schmidt Sciences
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- Pay
- $200K to $225K
- a year
- Location
- Baltimore, MD
- Work style
- On-site
- Job type
- Full time
- Posted
- Oct 20
- 10 days ago
Career path
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About the company
Schmidt Sciences
Non-profit organization management · 2 to 10 employees
Science Systems strengthens the technical and academic systems underlying scientific discovery through the support of people, tools, and technology. Its programs remove specific barriers researchers face, from crossing disciplines at critical career stages to accessing high-quality software and using AI effectively, and increasingly work to scale the practices and institutional models that help ambitious research thrive. The Center's portfolio includes the Schmidt Science Fellows, Schmidt Science Polymaths, the AI in Science Fellowship, the Virtual Institute for Scientific Software, Science Communications, and the Israeli Women's Postdoctoral Award.
What you'll do
- Develop and propose adjustments and evolutions to the program's strategy and direction, in partnership with the Director of the Science Systems Center.
- Review and refine the selection process each year, including new tools and approaches.
- Develop the program’s convening and community strategy, including the cadence and agendas of convenings and opportunities for engagement across cohorts and with other Schmidt Sciences programs.
- Develop approaches for assessing Polymaths’ progress and program impact.
- Lead the Polymaths program team, setting priorities, running regular team meetings, and coordinating work across selection, award administration, awardee engagement, and convenings.
- Set the cadence and timing of the program’s annual cycle, including selection, awardee start dates, reporting, and check-in meetings.
- Serve as the scientific lead for the annual selection cycle, including reviewing and approving nominating partners, synthesizing reviews at each stage, recommending which candidates advance and which are proposed as awardees, and presenting those recommendations internally.
- Serve as the primary point of contact for Polymaths, leading regular check-ins and supporting them through the course of their awards.
- Identify and recruit external reviewers and advisors for selection, mid-cycle, and end-of-award reviews.
- Review annual reports and prepare analysis and recommendations on award continuations.
- Lead mid-cycle reviews.
- Design and lead the program’s end-of-award process, including final reviews, the transition to alumni status, and any follow-on support.
- Build continuing relationships with alumni.
- Strengthen the program's external profile and engagement with the broader research community.
- Work with Polymaths’ home institutions on award arrangements and institutional support.
- Participate in relevant academic conferences and events, representing Schmidt Sciences' presence on issues related to interdisciplinary research and research careers.
- Work with other members of the Schmidt Sciences team to drive organizational priorities and model our values.
- Collaborate with other Science Systems programs, particularly Schmidt Science Fellows, on shared questions of interdisciplinary research and research careers.
- Contribute to the overall priorities of the Science Systems portfolio.
What you need
- Read across disciplines
- Judge whether a researcher is genuinely moving into new research areas
- Hold candid conversations with mid-career and senior academics
- Build the structures that let a program of this kind demonstrate what it achieves
Key skills
read across disciplineshold candid conversationsbuild the structures
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About the Science Systems Center
Science Systems strengthens the technical and academic systems underlying scientific discovery through the support of people, tools, and technology. Its programs remove specific barriers researchers face, from crossing disciplines at critical career stages to accessing high-quality software and using AI effectively, and increasingly work to scale the practices and institutional models that help ambitious research thrive. The Center's portfolio includes the Schmidt Science Fellows, Schmidt Science Polymaths, the AI in Science Fellowship, the Virtual Institute for Scientific Software, Science Communications, and the Israeli Women's Postdoctoral Award.
About the Polymaths Program
Schmidt Science Polymaths supports recently tenured researchers moving into substantively new lines of inquiry. Each Polymath receives $500,000 per year for up to five years, paid through their institution. The award is deliberately flexible, giving researchers room for high-risk, curiosity-driven work that conventional funding rarely reaches.
The program now supports 43 Polymaths at 31 institutions across 9 nations, working in mathematics, computer science, the natural sciences, engineering, and beyond. Its ambition extends past the individual awards, to shift what the wider research ecosystem treats as possible and worth doing by recognizing and backing this kind of intellectual risk.
With its first cohort now completing their awards, the program is entering its next phase, building an alumni community and extending its influence on how the research system supports ambitious work across disciplines.
The Role
Reporting to the Director of the Science Systems Center, the Program Scientist will lead the Schmidt Science Polymaths program, including its strategy, selection process, relationships with awardees and their institutions, and growing alumni community.
Impact in this role comes from enabling other people's science. It rewards someone who can read across disciplines, judge whether a researcher is genuinely moving into new research areas, hold candid conversations with mid-career and senior academics about their own work, and build the structures that let a program of this kind demonstrate what it achieves.
This is a hands-on leadership role. The Program Scientist sets direction and also runs the work: overseeing the selection cycle and participating in it, assessing annual reports, meeting Polymaths, shaping mid-cycle and end-of-award reviews, and preparing the analysis and recommendations behind award decisions.