Data and Partnerships Associate

Responsibilities

External Partnerships

• Serve as a point of contact for Astera’s partnership with the National Science Foundation’s Programmable Cloud Lab Test Bed Network.
• Provide expertise and oversight related to data and open science needs across network nodes.
• Consult with partners to understand their data and prepare it for high-quality, reusable publication for human researchers and AI systems.
• Ensure partners follow data policies, resolve compliance issues, and escalate complex or sensitive situations when appropriate.
• Initiate and maintain federal government partnerships that promote open science.

Open Science and Data Stewardship

• Create and maintain documentation for data repository interactions.
• Establish best practices for data release timing and methods, metadata tools and standards, and FAIR data compliance.
• Train and guide partners, researchers, and residents on data management best practices.
• Collaborate with software engineers to identify and address data infrastructure gaps.

General Data and Open Science

• Support integration of research data with open science knowledge graphs.
• Ensure compatibility with AI and machine-learning ecosystems that rely on high-quality scientific data.
• Develop responsible data-release approaches for sensitive, private, safety-related, or dual-use research while supporting Astera’s open science mission.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Science, Library Science, Data Science, or a related field; an advanced degree is preferred.
• 5–7+ years of experience managing data in research organizations, academic institutions, or similar environments with complex data governance requirements.
• Strong understanding of data quality principles, data governance frameworks, and metadata standards, with the ability to apply them in practice.
• Familiarity with scientific data formats, repositories, and standards.
• Experience initiating and maintaining partnerships with outside organizations, especially federal government partners.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to translate technical data requirements for researchers.
• Strong organizational skills, meticulous attention to detail, and the ability to manage multiple data projects.
• Ability to work independently, identify process improvements, and drive initiatives forward.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience with automated-instrumentation data, especially cloud-lab data.
• 1–3+ years of experience working for or with the federal government.
• Experience assessing or developing federal government policy.
• Familiarity with the AI/ML data landscape and structuring data for machine-learning applications.
• Knowledge of open science initiatives and open data publishing platforms.
• Experience with data integration, knowledge graphs, or semantic web technologies.
• Experience developing data-management policies, procedures, or training materials.

Compensation and Benefits

• Competitive compensation package commensurate with experience.
• Benefits are summarized by the employer.