Director, AI Operations & Services

Overview

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Informatics & Analytics (I&A) department serves patients present and future, by collaboratively building a sustainable informatics and analytics ecosystem of tools and services to support and grow the Institute’s research, clinical, and business missions.

The Director of AI Operations and Services leads the development and delivery of AI-related applications and services within the Informatics & Analytics department. This role oversees a team of 10+ FTEs and collaborates with both I&A and non-I&A stakeholders to implement AI solutions that support research, clinical, and operational goals. The Director serves as a subject matter expert in AI governance and strategy, contributing to institutional policy and compliance. This position reports to the Vice President of Computational and AI Services and plays a key role in shaping Dana-Farber’s AI ecosystem.

Located in Boston and the surrounding communities, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a leader in life changing breakthroughs in cancer research and patient care. We are united in our mission of conquering cancer, HIV/AIDS and related diseases. We strive to create an inclusive, diverse, and equitable environment where we provide compassionate and comprehensive care to patients of all backgrounds, and design programs to promote public health particularly among high-risk and underserved populations. We conduct groundbreaking research that advances treatment, we educate tomorrow's physician/researchers, and we work with amazing partners, including other Harvard Medical School-affiliated hospitals.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary subject-matter expert and technical leader for AI use cases within Informatics & Analytics.
• Collaborate with I&A Research, Clinical, and Operational leaders to design and deliver AI solutions that support their strategic priorities.
• Manage delivery of AI expertise and services to DFCI researchers through the Informatics Core.
• Contribute to institutional AI strategy and policy development, including compliance with regulatory guidelines. Serve as a core member of the DFCI AI Governance Committee. Collaborate with Clinical Informatics and AI Governance to ensure safe and effective deployment of clinical AI solutions.
• Provide technical leadership for Dana-Farber’s participation in the Cancer AI Alliance (CAIA) federated learning collaboration.
• Manage a $3–5M budget and oversee AI and data-science core services, including service level agreements with Informatics Core clients and vendor partnerships.
• Represent Dana-Farber in external AI collaborations and maintain awareness of industry trends and best practices. Represent Dana-Farber in conversations with AI leaders from other cancer centers and with AI/cloud vendors (e.g., Microsoft, Amazon, Google Cloud, Databricks, NVIDIA).

• Manages a group of 10+ FTE or budget equivalent, which includes other people managers. The director manages multiple teams. May supervise up to 20 additional FTE via matrix or vendor partnerships, including outsourced and offshore resources.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in a relevant STEM field required. PhD preferred.
• 10 years of relevant professional experience.
• 5 years of direct people management experience.
• Experience in Biomedical or Healthcare setting.
• Expertise in AI, data science, and machine learning applications in healthcare and research. Experience designing and deploying scalable AI systems for healthcare, preferably including one or more of radiology, digital pathology, medical text, audio recordings, claims data, or location data.
• Proficiency in supervised/unsupervised learning, neural networks, NLP, and LLMs for clinical use cases.
• Experience with AI frameworks, cloud services, and HIPAA-compliant deployments.
• Knowledge of MLOps practices and tools such as MLFlow for model lifecycle management.
• Familiarity with healthcare data standards (e.g., DICOM, OMOP, FHIR, HL7).
• Demonstrated ability to collaboratively develop and execute AI strategy in a healthcare setting.
• Strong leadership skills with experience hiring and managing multidisciplinary teams and mentoring staff.
• Experience developing AI governance and compliance processes and policies.
• Ability to translate AI models into clinical products and services.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills with a client-service orientation.
• Professionalism, adaptability, and a team-first mindset.

Pay Transparency Statement

The hiring range is based on market pay structures, with individual salaries determined by factors such as business needs, market conditions, internal equity, and based on the candidate’s relevant experience, skills and qualifications.

For union positions, the pay range is determined by the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA)

$212,100 - $234,300

At Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, we work every day to create an innovative, caring, and inclusive environment where every patient, family, and staff member feels they belong. As relentless as we are in our mission to reduce the burden of cancer for all, we are equally committed to diversifying our faculty and staff. Cancer knows no boundaries and when it comes to hiring the most dedicated and diverse professionals, neither do we. If working in this kind of organization inspires you, we encourage you to apply.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is an equal opportunity employer and affirms the right of every qualified applicant to receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, national origin, sexual orientation, genetic information, disability, age, ancestry, military service, protected veteran status, or other characteristics protected by law.