Senior Director, Undergraduate Biomedical Research

• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Standard Work Schedule:
• Building:
• Salary Range: $150,000 - $175,000

Position Summary

The Senior Director, Undergraduate Biomedical Research is a leadership position within VIBRE and reports to the Associate Dean for Biomedical Graduate Education and Director of VIBRE. The Senior Director leads the undergraduate research program connecting Columbia College and Barnard College students with research laboratories across VP&S. As the primary point of contact between students and principal investigators, the Senior Director recruits and interviews prospective interns, matches them to laboratories aligned with their interests and expertise, prepares them over the course of the academic year, ensures completion of all required training before placement, and mentor's students through their internship and next career steps. Beyond the individual student experience, the Senior Director builds the connective scientific infrastructure that makes the program possible — establishing a faculty dissemination structure that seeds cooperative cross-laboratory projects and creating venues of synergy between basic and clinical scientists to support internships tailored to pre-med students.

Beyond the undergraduate program, the Senior Director will build scientific infrastructure that advances VIBRE’s broader training mission: making research across VP&S visible and accessible to trainees, creating opportunities for faculty and trainees to engage across laboratories and disciplines, and strengthening connections between basic and clinical science. The undergraduate program will thereby serve as both a pipeline into biomedical research and a platform for building the interdisciplinary scientific community at the heart of VIBRE.

Responsibilities

1.  Serve as the liaison between undergraduates, with an initial focus on Columbia and Barnard students, seeking summer internships in VP&S laboratories and the principal investigators hosting them.

2. Interview prospective students and identify laboratories that fit their expertise and research interests.

3. Prepare students throughout the academic year and ensure they have completed all training required for their internship (e.g., laboratory safety, responsible conduct of research, and any applicable IACUC, IBC, or human-subjects certifications) prior to lab placement.

4. Monitor each student’s progress within their host laboratory and advocate on their behalf; organize scientific symposia at which interns present their work at the close of the internship; assist students in obtaining fellowships; and advise them on next career steps.

5. Ensure that participating principal investigators hold appropriate expectations of undergraduate interns and have the mentoring capacity to host them successfully.

6. Establish a scientific dissemination structure at VP&S through which faculty present their work to colleagues, catalyzing cooperative cross-laboratory projects that expand and enrich the research opportunities available to undergraduate interns.

7. Create venues for synergy between clinical and basic scientists, fostering internships tailored to the interests and career trajectories of pre-med students.

8. Manage and steward a dedicated program budget supporting summer internships and the organization of scientific events.

9. Design and continuously improve the internship program, including curriculum, timelines, and evaluation of outcomes. 

10. Track program-level intern placement, retention, and downstream outcomes; report to the Dean as well as to inform continuous improvement and strengthen future institutional and extramural funding efforts.

11. Create a platform that will expose VP&S research and researchers (via short videos, recorded slide shows, virtual and in person presentations) to the undergraduate community. 

12. Serve as a VIBRE liaison to existing and new Columbia University Pathways Programs, especially those based at VP&S, and related undergraduate research initiatives, identifying opportunities for shared programming, student recruitment, faculty mentor engagement, professional development, and participant tracking across programs.

13. Support development of external funding proposals for undergraduate biomedical research education, including NIH R25 or similar mechanisms, by helping define program goals, educational activities, mentor networks, evaluation plans, participant outcomes

14. Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

1.    PhD in a biomedical research discipline.
2. Prior hands-on research experience and broad familiarity with the range of research conducted across VP&S.
3. Demonstrated experience mentoring or advising trainees.
4. Working knowledge of research training and compliance requirements (laboratory safety, RCR, animal and human-subjects research).
5. Strong organizational and interpersonal skills; ability to coordinate across many stakeholders.

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.