Project Manager-Automated Synthesis Facility

PROJECT MANAGER-Automated Synthesis Facility

Job Category: Research Support

Requisition Number: PROJE
005216

• Posted :
  September 21, 2026
• Full-Time
• On-site

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ABOUT US:

Scripps Research is a nonprofit biomedical institute ranked as one of the most influential in the world for its impact on innovation. We celebrated our 100-year legacy in 2024. This significant milestone marks a century of seminal discoveries in immunology, infectious diseases (such as COVID-19, flu, HIV), neuroscience, heart disease, cancer, and more. Located in La Jolla, California, the institute houses six research departments, multiple Nobel laureates, a top-ranked graduate school and a leading postdoctoral training program.

Scripps Research encompasses two elite and highly innovative institutes, the Cali
-Skaggs Institute for Innovative Medicines and Scripps Research Translational Institute, which merge foundational studies in biology, chemistry and computer science with translational science to produce pioneering drugs and advances in digital and precision medicine. Together, we cultivate new scientific leaders and expand the frontiers of knowledge to deliver medical breakthroughs impacting human health around the globe. If you have a passion for making a difference, this could be your opportunity to join our transformative team.

Project Manager

The Automated Synthesis Facility (ASF) at Scripps Research hosts the Chemistry Node of the U.S. National Science Foundation Programmable Cloud Laboratory (PCL) Test Bed, a four-year NSF Cooperative Agreement. The Node is turning ASF from a supervised shared-use facility into a remotely accessible, closed-loop, AI-driven chemistry platform: instruments exposed through open standardized interfaces, experiments planned and refined by machine-learning models, and results captured against FAIR-compliant metadata schemas.

The work spans three institutions:
Scripps Research, UCLA, and Sunthetics, Inc. with several institutional and industrial partners.

We are looking for a full-time Project Manager to serve as the Node’s dedicated project management professional. Working with the Principal Investigator/Node Director, the Project Manager assists in managing the budget, schedule, and scope of the award; drives the Node against NSF’s fixed implementation gates; leads reporting to NSF; and coordinates the Node’s role in Test Bed-wide governance, standards development, and user recruitment.

The position is named Node-level Key Personnel under the award’s Cooperative Agreement Programmatic Terms and Conditions and sits on the Node Management Team. The role is a fixture of both operations: approximately 90% of effort supports the NSF award, with the balance supporting day-to-day administration of the Automated Synthesis Facility.

• Assist the Node Director in managing the budget, schedule, and scope of the project, including expenditures against the approved budget, subaward invoicing and deliverables (UCLA; Sunthetics, Inc.), and coordination with the Scripps’ Office of Sponsored Programs and financial teams.
• Maintain the Strategic Implementation Plan and Project Execution Plan (PEP) as living documents and keep the Instrument Inventory Table current in a form satisfying 2 CFR §200.313 equipment use requirements.
• Drive execution against the PCL Implementation Timeline — Alpha (≤12 months), Beta (≤18 months), Robust User Service (≤24 months), and Post-Award Continued Operation (≤48 months) — maintaining the Node risk register and surfacing schedule risk early for re-planning with the Node Director.
• Lead reporting to NSF: quarterly project reports (quarterly in year one, thereafter as requested by the…