Principal Clinical Research Scientist

Summary

Join Crisis Text Line's Research & Impact department as a Principal Clinical Research Scientist and contribute to groundbreaking research demonstrating and optimizing the impact of our mental health support service. You will leverage your expertise in clinical psychopathology and data analysis to generate insights from over 10 million crisis conversations. Collaborate with a diverse team of experts using AI/ML and NLP to identify trends and improve the lives of those in crisis. This role involves leading research projects, writing scientific publications, and contributing to strategic initiatives. The position offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package.

Requirements

• Advanced training and experience in clinical psychopathology research, suicidology, computational psychiatry, or a comparable social or behavioral sciences field (PhD in research-oriented clinical psychology program strongly preferred)
• Significant experience in programming languages used for data manipulation and computational statistics (such as Python, R, MATLAB, C++, Java, Go), and with SQL
• Deep knowledge and demonstrated experience using rigorous quantitative research methods, analyzing data using multiple approaches, and reporting recommended actions based on research results
• Comprehensive experience with scientific manuscript preparation
• Experience designing, writing, and submitting scientific research grants
• Excellent skills in turning data insights into various formats for broad consumption (e.g. slides, briefs, blog posts, and talking points for executives, funders and the public)
• Experience designing, implementing and managing complex research and evaluation projects
• Understanding of qualitative research methods and basic ML theory and practice
• Experience working in cross-functional or matrix teams
• Excellent project management, communication, and presentation skills
• Reliable High-Speed Internet Required: Must have a stable high-speed internet connection to support seamless remote collaboration, virtual meetings, online job tasks, etc

Responsibilities

• Contribute to strategic cross-functional internal collaborations
• Contribute to cross-functional relationships and collaborations to conduct strategic assessments, evaluations, and research. Solve ambiguous and complex problems related to the evaluation and measurement of clinical effectiveness
• Deliver clinical leadership to demonstrate quality and effectiveness of Crisis Text Line’s service in collaboration with clinical team, Senior Principal Research Scientist, and Chief Impact Officer
• Support strategic funding opportunities (contracts and grants) to optimize Crisis Text Line’s impact for texters, volunteers and society
• Deliver clinical scientific research expertise for Crisis Text Line
• Lead the design, conduct, and reporting of scientific research projects that use custom ML/deep learning/NLP pipelines to analyze conversational data pertaining to mental health crises. This encompasses work that uses Python with frameworks like scikit-learn, spaCy, NLTK, Hugging Face, TensorFlow, PyTorch, Transformers, Spark, and/or similar tools, use traditional ML and Large Language Model (LLM)/transformer architectures and related strategies to analyze large datasets. Provide conceptual leadership to the team to align research efforts toward cutting-edge research topics in the field of crisis intervention. Lead research projects on mental health crises; briefs related to mental health, coping, and volunteering; and mental health and support disparities in the United States and globally
• Proactively provide research methods expertise and mentorship across the Research & Impact portfolio, team, and organization
• Conceptualize and write grants and scientific manuscripts that advance the field of NLP-driven research on mental health and crisis intervention. Serve as principal investigator (PI) on NLP/ML related mental health projects. Supervise team members in the production of scientific output including conference abstracts, conference papers, manuscripts, and grants
• Write research grants, briefs, memos, technical reports, and scientific manuscripts for peer-reviewed publications

Benefits

• 20 paid holidays including: Federal holidays like Juneteenth and Labor Day, Election day, Holiday break from Dec 24 through January 1, 2 renewal days, 2 floating holidays
• Flexible paid time off, including: 15 vacation days, 3 personal days, 7 sick days
• Medical, dental, and vision benefits for the staff member and family at no cost to the employee
• 403B retirement plan (the nonprofit equivalent of a 401K): 3% contribution by Crisis Text Line to support building financial wellness, regardless of personal contribution
• 12 weeks paid parental leave (after 6 months of employment)
• Student loan repayment (after 2 years of continuous full time service)
• Family support through a virtual childcare platform
• Stipends/Allowances: Mental health (Monthly), Internet Service (Monthly), Professional Development (Annual), Wellness (Annual), Home office setup (One time/First year)