Director, Institute for Disease Modeling at Gates Foundation in Seattle, WA

Job description

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 Team The Institute for Disease Modeling (IDM) is an embedded research institute within the Gates Foundation, supporting global efforts to eradicate infectious diseases and achieve permanent improvements in health. We develop, use, and share computational modeling tools, and promote quantitative decision-making through robust mathematical and statistical modeling. The IDM team comprises both research scientists and software engineers. IDM has a bold and important vision, and you will play a key role in realizing that vision through the impact you have as a research leader, as a team manager, strategic thinker, and thought partner. Application Deadline: Saturday, November 7, 2026 Your Role As Director of the Institute for Disease Modeling (IDM), you provide the scientific and technical vision, strategic leadership, and organizational direction to advance IDM's impact on global health and development. You set IDM's scientific agenda, shape its capabilities, and ensure its expertise in infectious disease modeling, quantitative science, data science, and analytics is applied to the foundation's most consequential challenges. Leading a unique research institute embedded within the Gates Foundation, you have the opportunity to connect innovative science with real-world decision-making at scale. You serve as a trusted scientific and strategic partner to foundation leaders, bringing independent scientific judgment and ensuring rigorous quantitative evidence informs strategies, investments, policies, and programmatic decisions. You identify emerging opportunities, guide scientific priorities, and foster collaboration across subject areas, programs, and geographies to increase IDM's impact. You also serve as a prominent external ambassador for IDM, building influential scientific partnerships, strengthening its reputation, and positioning the institute as a destination for exceptional scientific and technical talent. Through the IDM leadership team, you cultivate a high-performing, collaborative, and innovative organization, with accountability for its scientific excellence, talent, culture, organizational effectiveness, and long-term impact. What You'll Do Set IDM's scientific and technical direction, establishing the agenda, priorities, and standards for dynamical disease modeling, quantitative science, data science, software, and analytics and ensuring IDM maintains a high bar for scientific rigor, innovation, relevance, and impact. Apply deep scientific, programmatic, and technical judgment to prioritize IDM's portfolio, determining where IDM should invest its capabilities and capacity, where it can make a distinctive contribution, and what work should be stopped or deprioritized as foundation priorities and scientific opportunities evolve. Ensure IDM's modeling and analytical capabilities are integrated into strategy and decision-making across the foundation, partnering with foundation leaders and program teams to frame critical questions, challenge assumptions, define needed data collection, evaluate emerging analytic technologies, assess interventions and investment choices, and translate quantitative evidence into actionable strategic insight. Oversee the