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Chief of Staff
Palo Alto, CA
About Arc Institute
Arc Institute is an independent nonprofit research organization at the interface of artificial intelligence and biology, working to accelerate scientific progress and understand the root causes of complex diseases. Founded in 2021 and based in Palo Alto, Arc partners with Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and UC San Francisco.
Unlike academia, our scientists have long-term funding and industry-like resources. Unlike industry, they're free to pursue high-risk, long-term research without commercial pressures. Arc's Technology Centers and Core Investigator labs work side by side, integrating experimental and computational biology under one roof to tackle problems neither could solve alone.
Our two Institute Initiatives reflect this model in action:
- Virtual Cell Initiative: Building a full-stack virtual cell model to identify disease mechanisms and nominate drug targets, accelerating the path from biological insight to clinical trials.
- Alzheimer's Disease Initiative: Mapping the genes, pathways, and environmental factors behind Alzheimer's disease to develop drug candidates that address root causes.
More than 300 Arconauts work together at our Palo Alto headquarters, backed by substantial long-term philanthropic funding.
About the position
The Chief of Staff serves as a scientific and strategic partner, proxy, and "shared brain" to the Institute's Executive Director and Core Investigator. This is a technical, full-time role for someone who can engage substantively with the science, from CRISPR-based transcriptome engineering and functional genomics to computational modeling and disease biology, and translate that engagement into sharp decision-making, program execution, and cross-disciplinary coordination. On a given day you might pressure-test the experimental design or interpretation of a scientific project, distill complex inputs into clear decision frameworks and meeting agendas, scope and foster cross-lab collaboration, prepare a scientifically rigorous external deliverable, and protect the Executive Director's time for deep work by optimizing her schedule. You will create leverage for the Executive Director's highest-priority scientific and organizational work by owning her operating rhythm, helping drive technical initiatives to completion, and connecting the right people, data, and resources to unblock science. You will be trusted with confidential scientific and organizational information and empowered to act on her behalf, so scientific judgment, discretion, and follow-through are essential.
The Executive Director is a Core Investigator and Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Stanford whose laboratory studies the molecular pathways driving neurodegenerative disease with the goal of developing rationally targeted therapeutics. Her group develops CRISPR-based technologies to directly perturb the transcriptomic landscape of the cell, including engineered type VI RNA-targeting CRISPR-Cas systems, and applies them across functional genomic screens and disease models. She operates as a biologist and PI, scientific leader for our Institute Initiatives, and overall institutional leader, and needs a Chief of Staff who can deeply understand and support all three.
About you
- You love engaging with science deeply across functional genomics, neuroscience and computational science
- You are fluent across the experimental/computational divide. You are comfortable talking with wet-lab scientists and computational biologists alike and can help them collaborate effectively.
- You are highly organized and 10/10 detail-oriented
- You are a natural information gatherer, synthesizer and connector. You proactively seek out the right people and data, ask incisive technical questions, and turn a complex, ambiguous picture into clear options and recommendations.
- You build trust and enable others. You are persuasive but tactful, bringing diplomacy, curiosity, and positive energy to every interaction.
- You love structuring hard problems. You break ambiguous research initiatives into clear workstreams and deliverables, identify dependencies, and anticipate bottlenecks before anyone else.
- You are a strong writer and communicator, able to translate technical work for non-specialist audiences without sacrificing accuracy.
- You are unflappable and solution-oriented amid ambiguity, shifting priorities, and rapid change, and you handle confidential information with discretion.
- You are mission-oriented and energized by accelerating science through great organization, coordination, and partnership.
In this position you will
- Serve as a scientific and strategic daily thought partner to the Executive Director, engaging critically with scientific work across the lab, institute and external partnerships, providing structure for the work and representing her priorities internally and externally.
- Own the operating rhythm of the Executive Director’s office, including a complex, shifting schedule and the prioritization of conflicting technical and organizational demands. This includes a small amount of administrative work for the Executive director.
- Gather and synthesize technical information and open decisions from across the Institute into clearly framed options, trade-offs, and recommendations, so the Executive Director can make well-informed scientific and strategic decisions quickly.
- Design strategic and effective meeting and offsite pre-reads, meeting agendas and meeting followup for Arc’s leadership team as well as scientific teams
- Drive high-priority scientific programs, collaborations and special projects from inception through execution, anticipating experimental, computational, and organizational bottlenecks before they arise in close collaboration with the Scientific Program Management function at Arc which runs ongoing OKR planning and project management for our technology centers.
- Partner with the Executive Director and leadership team on defining annual and longer term strategic goals for the institute
- Unblock science by organizing and stewarding scientific collaborations, within the Institute and with external partners, and by making the right connections between people, data, platforms, and reagents.
- Translate complex technical work for varied audiences, from expert scientific staff to institutional leadership, funders, and public-facing communications, without losing rigor.
- Handle confidential scientific and organizational information with care, thoughtfulness, and discretion at all times.
Requirements
- A Ph.D. (or equivalent research training) with a demonstrated scientific track record, or comparable technical depth from a consulting or founder path, plus 5-12+ years of experience, sufficient to serve as a genuine scientific thought partner. This role spans multiple levels; final leveling and compensation will be determined based on the candidate's experience, scope of prior responsibility, and demonstrated impact.
- Background in one or more relevant biology areas (e.g., genome or transcriptome engineering, functional genomics, neuroscience, molecular/cell biology, multi-omics, or computational biology).
- Demonstrated strength in technical information gathering, stakeholder and dependency mapping and management, and synthesizing complex scientific information into clear options and actionable recommendations for decision makers.
- Track record of managing complex, cross-functional projects in a research environment from inception through execution, balancing competing priorities while maintaining focus on strategic objectives.
- Evidence of translating technical or scientific work for non-specialist audiences (e.g., institutional or public-facing writing and presentations, not academic papers).
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with proven ability to engage credibly with research scientists, experimentalists, computational teams, and senior leadership.
- Experience designing and facilitating highly effective meeting pre-reads, agendas and followups
- Solution-oriented and adept at navigating shifting priorities and rapid change; unflappable, proactive, and discreet.
Preferred Qualifications
- Ph.D. in the life sciences or a closely related field; open to candidates from academic, consulting, or founder backgrounds and not limited to a traditional academic path.
- Hands-on experience with CRISPR/gene- or RNA-editing technologies, functional genomic screens, or high-throughput experimental platforms.
- Experience with computational biology, machine learning, or large-scale genomic data, or a demonstrated ability to partner closely with teams that do.
- Experience organizing scientific collaborations or programs, within an institution and with external partners, from inception through execution.
- Experience supporting board preparation, scientific offsites, and executive or scientific communications.
- Demonstrated staying power and increasing scope of responsibility over a career (people-management experience is not a prerequisite)
The base salary range for this position is $160,000 to $237,500. These amounts reflect the range of base salary that the Institute reasonably would expect to pay a new hire or internal candidate for this position. The actual base compensation paid to any individual for this position may vary depending on factors such as experience, market conditions, education/training, skill level, and whether the compensation is internally equitable, and does not include bonuses, commissions, differential pay, other forms of compensation, or benefits. This position is also eligible to receive an annual discretionary bonus, with the amount dependent on individual and institute performance factors.
In addition to the Base Salary and Annual Bonus above, you will be eligible to participate in the Institute’s Compound Cash Grant Program (the “CCGP”). The CCGP is a program designed to offer multi-year cash grants providing for a fixed dollar amount paid out in semi-annual installments to reward employees for staying and contributing to the Institute. As soon as reasonably practical after your start date, you will receive a grant letter describing the terms of your award under the CCGP.
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