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 TeamOur Global Health Program harnesses advances in science and technology to save lives in poor countries. We focus on the health problems that have a major impact in developing countries but receive too little attention and funding. Where proven tools and interventions exist, we support sustainable ways to improve their delivery and implementation in populations. Where they do not, we invest in research and development of new interventions, such as vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics. Our work in infectious diseases focuses on strategies to fight and prevent HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis (TB), neglected tropical diseases, enteric and diarrheal diseases, pneumonia and polio.
The goal of the Enterics, Diagnostics, Genomics, & Epidemiology (EDGE) Team is to accelerate the reduction in childhood deaths from diarrheal diseases in low- and lower-middle-income countries, and to eliminate typhoid as a public health problem globally. We also aim to enhance the development and use of diagnostics for infectious diseases, to develop low-cost and optimized approaches to pathogen surveillance in LMICs and to improve the quality of data and modelling for public health decision making. Guided by the burden of disease and the threat of outbreaks, we develop vaccines, diagnostics, and tools for detection and surveillance of pathogens for safe and effective delivery to our populations in need. Vaccines are being developed or optimized to target rotavirus, bacterial causes of diarrhea (including Shigella and cholera), and enteric fever (typhoid and paratyphoid). We also focus on extreme volume manufacturing of diagnostics, developing low-cost point-of-care molecular diagnostics and improving specimen collection devices. Surveillance tools in development include tools for pathogen detection and genomic surveillance from clinical samples and wastewater to optimize global and local surveillance for outbreak and endemic pathogens.
Your Role
We seek a self-starter who can integrate a diverse set of perspectives to build consensus, structure and drive forward progress on complex topics, and provide both technical and operational capacity to the Enterics program. As a key member of the Enterics Program, the Program Officer (PO), is accountable for implementing and leading a portfolio of grants and contracts in support of the Enterics Program priorities within the EDGE team. You will provide crucial project management, grant management, and communication plans on Enterics Program priorities as well as for internal Program Strategy Teams (PSTs) and other foundation partners. You will partner closely with the Deputy Director (DD), Enteric & Diarrheal Diseases (EDD) to give to the continued development of the team’s strategic vision including participating in the setting of the overall strategy and goals for the group.
What You’ll Do:
Negotiate, implement, and lead a portfolio of grants or performance-based contracts; including alignment of internal and external collaborators, review of letters of inquiry and grant proposals as well as providing clear, concise and insightful written analyses and recommendations for funding.
Partner closely with team leadership, including the Director and DD Enteric & Diarrheal Diseases, to communicate and implement the overall Enteric Program strategy.
Lead information related to grant portfolio and domain-level data (Enterics), such as documenting key activities and decisions; inputting into key business processes and performance measurement tools; preparing materials for communication with foundation leadership.
Consult, provide thought partnership, and support to grantees and other partners to increase the impact of projects, including the design of suitable epidemiological studies and the creation of well-integrated vaccine development plans, which may include clinical study designs, statistical analysis plans, and clinical assays for vaccine clinical studies.
Drive facilitation, project management, collaborator management, and follow-up on action items for cross-cutting initiatives led by the Enterics Program.
Partner with the Strategy, Planning and Management (SPM) team to provide program management support for the Enterics Program to ensure strategic and financial objectives are met: establish and implement work plans, facilitate and supervise grant progress against achievements and decision points; lead stakeholder interactions including meetings management; assess needs and implement improvements in processes and projects that increase the impact of the program.
This role will require the ability to travel up to 30% domestically and internationally.
Your Experience:
The ideal candidate will have an advanced degree or background in multidisciplinary research with infectious diseases, immunology and/or gut physiology.
Experience working in low- and middle-income settings and ability to navigate geography specific contexts.
Confirmed program and collaborator management skills: ability to coordinate inputs from many people; to track progress against targets and identify barriers to progress; to plan agendas and facilitate meetings; and to organize, evaluate, and communicate information.
Demonstrated ability to work with flexibility, efficiency, and passion in a fast-paced and complex internal and external environment.
Proven experience in scientific writing and data analysis, written and oral communication skills, and experience advocating and communicating with a broad and diverse audience.
Tolerance for ambiguity and ability to apply structure to simplify sophisticated problems.