Senior Scientist, Bioprocessing

Scale the cultivated meat industry

The Good Food Institute is a nonprofit think tank working to make the global food system better for the planet, people, and animals. Alongside scientists, businesses, and policymakers, GFI’s teams focus on making plant-based and cultivated meat delicious, affordable, and accessible. Powered by philanthropy, GFI is an international network of organizations advancing alternative proteins as an essential solution needed to meet the world’s climate, global health, food security, and biodiversity goals. 

In this role, you will have the opportunity to analyze the technical landscape for cultivated meat, identify key challenges, and articulate solutions to accelerate the industry. Your analyses will help create a roadmap for improving the quality of alternative protein products and growing their market share. You will ensure that efforts and funding are allocated toward the highest-impact research areas to accelerate the adoption of cultivated meat and transform agriculture toward more sustainable systems. Working with key academic, nonprofit, and industry stakeholders, you will help scale the cultivated meat industry and ensure that products can enter and grow in the marketplace as quickly as possible. The Senior Scientist, Bioprocessing will be responsible for:

• Leading technical analyses focused on the infrastructure, scale-up, and bioprocessing metrics for cultivated meat that culminate in white papers, briefs, presentations, web content, and peer-reviewed articles. This includes leading analyses conducted internally as well as overseeing analyses contracted out to external parties.
• Identifying and articulating the technical and economic bottlenecks facing the cultivated meat industry and proposing solutions that proactively alleviate them.
• Supporting teams within the Science & Technology Department and across GFI as a subject matter expert by engaging with and educating high-priority funders, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, food and life science companies, and academics to enhance their understanding of cultivated meat.
• Informing strategic decisions through insights derived from deep industry analysis, industry surveys, and examining other published work.
• Establishing metrics tied to the progress of the cultivated meat industry’s scale-up and infrastructure build-out and managing internal and external trackers for these metrics. 
• Reviewing grant applications for GFI’s research grants program.
• Liaising with other organizations that GFI is member of and serving in an advisory capacity, such as the Cultivated Meat Modeling Consortium and the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute.
• Building GFI’s capacity to serve as a knowledge hub for the industry and as a connector and force multiplier.
• Performing other duties as assigned.

The Senior Scientist, Bioprocessing must have:

• A Ph.D. in a relevant scientific field and 1-2 years of postgraduate experience or an M.S. in a relevant scientific field and at least 2 years of industry experience in settings scaling human or animal cell cultures.
• Exceptional writing skills for technical and general audiences.
• Proficient public speaking skills.
• Experience translating scientific information into formats for non-scientific professionals.  
• A functional understanding of the principles, methods, equipment, and techniques used in animal cell and/or fermentation bioprocesses, with preferred familiarity with scale-up and commercial translation.
• Comfort working remotely and in a rapidly growing and evolving organization.
• Strong support for GFI’s philosophy and mission; demonstrated interest in plant based & other alt proteins, public health, environmentalism, climate change, animal protection, or hunger relief.
• A commitment to GFI’s values: believe change is possible, do the most good we can, share knowledge freely, act on evidence, and invite everyone to the table.

We want the best people and we don’t want biases holding us back. We strongly encourage people of every race, color, orientation, age, gender, origin, and ability to apply. Because we value a diverse workplace, we prioritize an inclusive climate absent of discrimination and harassment during the application process and after you join the team.

Research indicates that men tend to apply for jobs when they meet just 60% of the criteria, while women and people from other marginalized groups only apply if they are a 100% match. If you are passionate about GFI’s mission and think you have what it takes to be successful in this role even if you don’t check all the boxes, please apply. We’d appreciate the opportunity to consider your application. 

• Terms of employment: Full-time, exempt
• Reports to: Elliot Swartz, Lead Scientist, Cultivated Meat
• Location: Remote; United States — applicants must also be authorized to work in the United States 
• Travel: Flexible, but anticipated travel of 1 to 2 weeks per quarter for conferences, workshops, and organizational retreats. 
• Benefits: Working from home, full medical coverage, optional dental and vision packages, a 401(k) plan with employer match, flexible holiday and vacation plans, opportunity for advancement, respectful managers, and supportive colleagues.
• This is a U.S.-based position: In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form upon hire. 
• COVID vaccination policy: GFI requires all US employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Proof of vaccination will be requested before the start of employment. GFI will consider requests for accommodations or exemptions from this policy on a case by case basis, in accordance with applicable laws.
• Salary: $95,000 - $100,000 (depending on experience and qualifications)

Application Deadline: June 15, 2022

Decided not to apply? If after reviewing this job description, you have decided not to apply, please let us know why by completing this short survey. 

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