Director of Research in History, Policy, and Culture  

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) is seeking exceptional candidates for the new management position of the Spencer Weart Director of Research in History, Policy, and Culture.   

AIP is a non-profit federation of 10 Member Societies and 18 Affiliates, with the mission to advance, promote and serve the physical sciences for the benefit of humanity. The Director will lead AIP’s research and analysis operations at the interface of science, history, policy, and culture.   

Reporting to the AIP Chief Research Officer, the Director will oversee the work of AIP’s existing history programs and the building of a new physical sciences public policy research and analysis function. AIP’s history programs, currently within the Center for History of Physics, include AIP’s oral history program, programs supporting early career historians, and the production and promulgation of history-focused content.   

The Director will be a key leader in AIP Research—a center of excellence that builds on existing AIP capabilities and is designed to execute a research strategy and agenda focused on the interplay of the physical sciences, relevant public policy, and the discipline’s culture, with the goal of empowering positive change in the physical sciences enterprise.   

The Director will be a member of AIP’s Portfolio and Innovation Council—a staff-led forum chartered to and held accountable for making recommendations to AIP’s executive leadership on optimizing the full portfolio of AIP programs, products, and services. 
 

RESPONSIBILITIES: 

The Director of Research in History, Policy, and Culture will have the following responsibilities: 

• Engage in developing a deep understanding of the relevant multidimensional dynamics of the physical sciences at the intersection of history, public policy, and culture—with the primary goals of advancing the success of AIP’s Member Societies and empowering physical scientists with evidence-based research and analysis. 

• Deliver on operational excellence in AIP’s history programs and public policy analysis—all in support the AIP Strategic Framework and its AIP-2025 vision and with consideration of the findings and recommendations of the recently commissioned AIP Blue-Ribbon Panel to Envision the Future of AIP’s History, Library, and Archives programs. 

• Create and implement a plan to build a new capacity at AIP in public policy analysis—building off AIP’s more-than 30 years of reporting at the interface of public policy and the physical sciences.   

• Work to support the Chief Research Officer on developing a strategy that enables and accelerates the start-up of the Institute’s new center of excellence, AIP Research. The strategy will build upon AIP’s current expertise, the talent of the current constituent teams in AIP Research, and their portfolio of offerings.  Collaborate, in this regard, with colleagues across the AIP Research team—in particular, the Director of the Niels Bohr Library and Archives, the AIP Senior Research Fellow-Science & Society, and the Director of the Statistical Research Center in this pursuit. This effort will include envisioning an approach to the development of and role for a corps of AIP Research Fellows and AIP Policy Fellows—including the awarding of AIP’s Congressional and State Department Fellowships. 

• Cultivate AIP’s reputation so that the Institute is called on for its research and analysis by AIP Member Society leadership and membership, AIP Affiliates, public policy influencers and practitioners, researchers, students and educators, and early career professionals. 

• Work with the CRO to identify and startup and sustained external financial support from private foundations, government, corporations, and any other likely sources for AIP Research. This work will leverage AIP’s grants management capabilities in partnership with the AIP development / AIP Foundation team. 

• Work with the CRO to address the recommendations of, in the overarching context of AIP’s Strategic Framework.  

• Ensure that planned program outputs a) leverage and encourage collaboration, coordination and excellence across AIP; b) are easily discoverable and accessible, and effectively leverage the AIP digital experience platform; c) are easily digestible and, if recurring, appear at an appropriate frequency; d) provide attractive and compelling content that cannot be found elsewhere or that is more accessible or better organized than in other places. 

• Develop and maintain ongoing relationships with a) AIP Member Society points-of-contact in coordination with the Chief Federation Officer; and with b) AIPP Publishing contacts in coordination with the Chief Content Officer to encourage inter-organizational collaborations when appropriate. 

• Develop a partnership plan to achieve strategic objectives by engaging in active partnerships with relevant institutions in the physical sciences and other engineering and scientific fields, the history of science, and public policy analysis and thought leadership.  

• Engage with multi-sector stakeholders to ensure AIP is focused on taking the longer view—identifying topics for study, analysis, and research that are less visible to the community but have high potential for impact in the future. In addition, work across AIP and with our Member Societies and other stakeholders to identify impactful topics.  

• Convene forums (webinars, symposia) to promote education​​​, engagement,​​ ​and dialogue about pressing and unanswered questions​, challenges, and opportunities​, identified through our journalism, research​,​ and ongoing ​​​input from​ AIP ​​M​ember ​S​ocieties​ and other stakeholders.  
   

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS: 

AIP seeks a Director of Research in History, Policy, and Culture with the following attributes: 

• Strategic, analytic, flexible, curious, and team-oriented innovative leader.  

• Organizational understanding and the ability to leverage the power of relationships within the organization and with other organizations.  

• The ability to foster an inclusive, empowering and team-building work environment that will encourage professional and personal growth and knowledge transfer to future talent. 

• Expertise in the scientific principles, methods, and processes used to conduct a systematic and objective inquiry, including study design, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; and reporting results. 

• The ability to communicate research results and abstract concepts to a variety of audiences. 

In addition, the successful candidate should have: 

• Advanced graduate degree (or equivalent experience) in the physical sciences or engineering, history, social sciences, or public policy.    

• 5 years of relevant experience in historical or public policy research and analysis, ideally in an innovative and fast-paced work environment.  

• At least 5 years’ experience managing or directing projects or resources relevant to this position. 

• Experience of and interest in grants solicitation, fundraising, and management. 

• Demonstrated understanding of the role of non-profit thought leadership organizations and/or the role of professional scientific societies / associations. 

The successful candidate for this position will receive a salary commensurate with experience and accomplishments.  In addition, AIP offers a competitive package of employee benefits. 
 

ABOUT AIP 

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) was founded in 1931. At the urging of a report from the American Physical Society and with initial funding from the Chemical Foundation, leaders of American physics formed a corporation for the “advancement and diffusion of knowledge of the science of physics and its application to human welfare,” especially by achieving economies in the publishing of journals and the maintenance of membership lists. This new federation of societies was also formed to provide a common organizational home for the emerging new physics-associated scientific societies that were being formed at the time. 

Today, AIP provides the means for its ten Member Societies to pool, coordinate, and leverage their diverse expertise and contributions in the pursuit of the shared goal of advancing the physical sciences in the research enterprise, in the economy, in education, and in society. Through their partnership in AIP, Member Societies broaden their impact and achieve results beyond their individual missions and mandates. 

AIP also acts as an independent institute where research in social science, policy, and history advances the discipline of the physical sciences. 

Whereas AIP was established as a provider of publishing services to its Member Societies, the Institute has evolved considerably over the decades. Following the formation and successful spinoff in 2013 of AIP Publishing and as the Institute heads toward its centenary in 2031, AIP has adopted a Strategic Framework that is guiding the Institute's operations and evolution over the period 2020-2025. 

Since 2013, AIP Publishing—a wholly-owned but independently operated subsidiary LLC—continues to publish AIP journals and journals of five of AIP Member Societies. In addition, in 2019 AIP Foundation was added to the AIP family of organizations. Since AIP is the parent organization and noting that each of AIP Publishing and AIP Foundation have their own Boards, the financials of all three organizations are consolidated into AIP’s financial reports annually.