Director, Insights Design & Behavioral Science
Surgo Ventures, with headquarters in Washington, DC and a hub in the United Kingdom, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to solving health and social problems with precision. We do this by bringing together all the tools available from behavioral science, data science, and artificial intelligence to unlock solutions that will improve and save lives. We work globally: in the United States, the United Kingdom, and in low- and middle-income countries on issues like COVID-19, tuberculosis, maternal and child health, mental health, education and more. We also work with a wide variety of private and public sector partners.
Our multidisciplinary team includes global development experts, data scientists, behavioral scientists, and technologists who are skilled in collecting, analyzing and interpreting data on why people behave the way they do and how complex systems work, and in developing scalable solutions and tools. We are a growing, diverse team with big plans. We are now recruiting for a Director, Insights and Behavioral Science.
The Director, Insights and Behavioral Science will define Surgo’s core behavioral science strategy and offerings and conceptualize and lead key initiatives within Surgo. We are looking for someone with a strong vision of how we can apply behavioral science to the world’s most pressing health and social problems and willingness to roll up their sleeves to help make it happen. The Director will help to conceptualize, design, and oversee execution of multimodal studies to generate deep insights on specific programmatic initiatives. This role is critical to advancing our research and development agenda to develop innovative and scalable tools that generate actionable insights in low-resource settings to improve health and social outcomes. Examples include vaccine confidence, medication adherence, consumer tech engagement panels, and monitoring of norms and beliefs.
Role Description:
We are looking for an exceptional, creative, and entrepreneurial individual with a very strong background in insights design and behavioral science. As Director, your responsibilities will include:
Build Surgo’s core behavioral science offerings and work with team to define go-to-market strategies
Conceptualize and lead new initiatives and work with team to secure funding and partners to carry out new initiatives
Conceptualize, design, and oversee execution of novel research/insight generation initiatives in major areas such as vaccine confidence, medication adherence, and mental health in global and domestic settings.
Bring behavioral science technical leadership across Surgo’s portfolio of initiatives from COVID-19 to TB in India
Conceptualize and design new behavioral science frameworks and tools
Develop and test experimental methods of behavioral and health systems data collection at scale
Synthesize the most cross cutting approaches from both the private and public sector, and apply these to different problems sets
Distill analyses into clear insights for a variety of internal and external audiences
Present to partners and collaborators and prepare scientific communication to journals and conferences
This position is ideal for a candidate who has a vision on where behavioral science can help solve today’s most challenging issues and is looking to innovate and build a portfolio. This person has a deep foundation in behavioral science, with extensive private-sector consumer research experience and/or public sector. This position requires deep technical knowledge in study design and experimental as well as observational research methods, and a passion to build innovative methodological solutions to solve the most pressing development problems.
The candidate should have familiarity and experience with the application of a broad repertoire of methodologies and can lead teams to think through how different methods could help solve particular questions. This role entails strong relationship management with a diverse set of partners, and collaborative work within the Surgo research team. We are looking for someone entrepreneurial in spirit, strong problem solver, and an excellent communicator. This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the voice and influence strategy and delivery for an innovative, ambitious, and fast-growing organization.
The Essentials:
PhD with concentration in behavioral science, cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, epidemiology, behavioral economics, sociology, anthropology, public health, or related fields.
4+ years of post-graduate behavioral research experience in the private consumer research sector, health sector, or public section. Experience in both the private and public sector is preferred.
Deep knowledge of behavioral science theory, the latest developments, and passion for translating advances in theory into practical solutions
Proven track record of designing and implementing qualitative and quantitative observational or experimental research at scale, using multiple research methods such as surveys, decision making experiments, implicit association tests, etc.
Experience with technology- based observational methods (e.g. mobile-based surveys)
Experience with rigorous study sample design
Some experience with questionnaire data analysis, data cleaning, and statistical inference/hypothesis testing
Passion for distilling concepts into frameworks and converting approaches into scalable tools
Excellent ability to digest and evaluate evidence from interdisciplinary literature
Excellent communication (written, verbal, and visual presentation) skills for both academic and nonacademic audiences.
Proven record of publishing in top academic journals
Desirable
Previous experience of working in global health and development and along with US settings
Familiarity with building production-ready web- or mobile-based data collection pipelines
Experience in a fast-paced, private-sector consumer research environment (e.g. market research)
Experience of applying research into product development
Location: Washington DC, USA
Compensation: Highly competitive compensation and benefits package
Travel: International and national travel (~20% post COVID-19)
Our Hiring Philosophy
We hire for passion and core competencies.
We look for problem solvers and lateral thinkers.
We love it if you have done different things with your time.
If you think you are ideal for this position, write to us even if you don’t have all of the above requirements.
Application
Apply by visiting our application page here
Interested applicants, please submit 1) your resume/CV and 2) brief cover letter to Dr. Sema Sgaier, CEO, Surgo Ventures
Short-listed applicants will go through several steps: a phone screening, a take-home project; presentation to the team; and interviews with the CEO and the team.
Equal Opportunity and Diversity Policy
Surgo believes a diverse, inclusive staff makes us a stronger team and more impactful organization. We’re committed to a diverse team, and qualified people of all races, ethnicities, cultures, ages, sex, genders, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, languages, social class, marital status, religions, veterans status, and disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.