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Job Description
Institute for Protein Design's (IPD) has an outstanding opportunity for a Senior Science Communications Specialist to join their team.
About this Opportunity
The Senior Communication Specialist is responsible for advancing the Institute for Protein Design's (IPD) comprehensive communications and storytelling program. This includes full ownership of institutional narrative strategy, communications planning, media relations, digital platforms, brand systems, and content production. This role sets the strategic direction for how IPD communicates its science, impact, and priorities to internal and external audiences. The Senior Communication Specialist translates complex scientific and institutional objectives into integrated communications strategies and ensures consistent, high-quality execution across all channels. This role serves as the primary relationship-holder and coordination hub with UW Medicine and University of Washington communications partners, media, and external stakeholders, this role translates complex research and institutional priorities into clear presentations, reports, briefs, outlines, and written products and then converts that strategy into high-impact creative assets across digital, print, and experiential channels. The Senior Communication Specialist serves as the Institute's hands-on "creative authority," owning design quality, visual standards, and asset governance, and ensuring IPD's outward-facing materials consistently reflect the caliber, rigor, and ambition of its science. This position reports to the Director of Administration, partnering closely with Institute for Protein Design leadership, faculty, and programs to deliver rapid, accurate, and world-class creative output across the Institute's highest-priority moments, especially fundraising, partnership development, recruitment, high-value grants, and translational storytelling.
Position Dimensions and Impact to the University:
This position has an institute-wide and external-facing impact, directly shaping how the University of Washington's research is communicated and perceived. The execution of IPD communications directly influences how effectively University of Washington audiences understand, trust, and invest in IPD's work. High-quality creative output strengthens IPD's competitiveness for philanthropic support and major partnerships, improves clarity and persuasion in institutional and scientific presentations, and increases the effectiveness of recruitment and public-facing storytelling. The role is especially consequential for translational positioning: elevating Translational Investigator pitches and materials for venture, industry, and public audiences by producing investor-grade decks and media that are both scientifically rigorous and visually compelling. The Senior Communication Specialist also reinforces brand and governance alignment with UW Medicine standards where appropriate, ensuring IPD's distinctive identity is expressed consistently across web, print, events, and external communications. This role enhances the University's reputation, fundraising success, and strategic partnerships through effective storytelling. The role significantly contributes to research visibility, philanthropic engagement, and translational impact.
Position Complexities:
This is a high-complexity role defined by the breadth of IPD's science, the volume and time-sensitivity of institutional demands, and the requirement for both creative excellence and scientific precision. This role owns the end-to-end external communications of the IPD and will direct a multi-channel communications program that includes media relations, presentations, digital platforms, and institutional storytelling, while balancing strategic priorities and rapid-response needs. The most demanding aspects include rapidly converting complex technical concepts-often spanning computational biology, AI/Machine Learning-enabled discovery, experimental workflows, and translational programs-into clear, accurate visuals and narrative media that work for both expert and non-expert audiences; operating in a high-stakes environment where visual and narrative quality and clarity directly affect donor confidence, partner trust, recruitment outcomes, and institutional credibility; and delivering consistently under unpredictable timelines driven by major papers, announcements, leadership needs, and external events. The role requires rigorous creative judgment and strong production discipline: maintaining a coherent brand system across dozens of touchpoints, balancing speed with high craft, and managing iterative feedback loops across multiple stakeholders while preserving message integrity and design consistency. Success also requires mature cross-functional collaboration across the IPD and UW to interpret briefs, propose and discuss visual and narrative approaches, iterate toward excellence, and generate polished assets that reinforce IPD's editorial voice, while also independently identifying gaps, improving the creative system, and scaling reusable templates and asset libraries to reduce rework and increase throughput. The role requires a balance of strategic leadership, creative direction, operational rigor, and scientific fluency.
Key Responsibilities
Communications Program Leadership & Strategy (25%)

• Direct and administer IPD's end-to-end communications and storytelling program, including planning, execution, and continuous improvement.
• Define institutional message architecture, narrative priorities, and long-term communications strategy.
• Develop and maintain a comprehensive communications roadmap aligned with scientific priorities, partnerships, and fundraising goals.
• Ensure integration and alignment across all communications sub-functions (media, digital, presentations, publications, brand systems).

Narrative Development & Institutional Positioning (25%)

• Lead development of high-impact narratives that communicate IPD's scientific vision, discoveries, and societal impact.
• Produce and oversee strategic materials including reports, briefs, presentations, and partnership content.
• Identify and proactively develop storytelling opportunities beyond reactive communications cycles.
• Serve as a strategic advisor to leadership and faculty on communication approaches and messaging.
• Create a cohesive "presentation system" for IPD: speaker-ready masters, modular story blocks, and standardized visuals that can be rapidly customized for different presenters while remaining brand-consistent.
• Elevate Translational Investigator pitch materials for venture/industry/public consumption: narrative flow, visuals, figures, platform schematics, traction milestones, and "credibility signals" appropriate for external audiences.
• Direct and set the communications roadmap for the IPD. Define message architecture and narrative priorities, and ensure consistent, accurate, and timely outward-facing communications.
• Create high-impact stakeholder and visitor materials, including customized briefs, letters, reports, and presentations; guide visitors through IPD spaces and narrate lab activity with scientific fluency.
• Proactively identify and develop the stories the IPD should be telling, building longer-horizon communications plans and thematic campaigns beyond press cycles.
• Develop strategic materials for major institutional priorities, including philanthropic proposals, partnership materials, recruitment initiatives, and leadership communications.
• Own IPD's visual identity system and brand standards (templates, typography, layout systems, iconography, imagery style, motion guidelines), ensuring consistency across all major channels and deliverables.
• Build and maintain a scalable asset ecosystem (slide masters, figure styles, one-pagers, report layouts, signage kits, social templates) that enables fast, high-quality production across IPD.
• Establish creative intake, review, and approval workflows to ensure message alignment, quality control, and predictable production cycles.

External Communications (20%)

• Direct the IPD's outward-facing communications portfolio across media, web, social, and publications, ensuring scientific accuracy, consistent voice, and high creative standards
• Primary Liaison with UW Medicine Media Relations and the Office of Federal Relations. Ensure all IPD communications and media are in compliance with the UW standards.
• Direct IPD's external communications portfolio across media, web, social, and publications.
• Serve as primary liaison to UW Medicine Communications, UW News, and external media outlets.
• Develop and execute proactive media strategies and manage press engagement.
• Ensure all communications comply with University policies and standards.
• Execute communications for major milestones, including high-impact papers, clinical/translation launches, partnerships, funding awards, and key faculty/trainee/staff announcements.
• Maintain editorial oversight of all external-facing materials, including website content, social media, blog posts, and institutional publications; mentor faculty, postdocs, and students in science communication.
• Guide web strategy for ipd.uw.edu and related properties, building content hubs (research areas, visitor pathways, partnership case studies, translation success stories) aligned to institutional priorities.
• Oversee social media strategy and operations on existing and emerging platforms valid for our content, including scheduling systems and brand consistency.
• Build internal story-intake pipelines, enabling rapid capture of research updates and conversion into high-quality outward-facing content with appropriate approvals.

Budget, Resource, and Vendor Management (15%)

• Develop and manage the communications program budget, including planning, forecasting, and monitoring expenditures.
• Allocate resources across competing priorities to maximize impact.
• Manage external vendors and contractors, including scoping, procurement, and performance oversight.
• Partner with finance leadership to ensure fiscal responsibility and alignment with institutional goals.

Operations, Systems & Process Management (10%)

• Establish operational policies, procedures, and reporting mechanisms for communications activities.
• Oversee project intake, prioritization, workflow management, and production timelines.
• Implement systems to track outputs, measure effectiveness, and improve processes.
• Continuously refine operations to increase scalability and efficiency.

Stakeholder Engagement & Institutional Collaboration (5%)

• Serve as the primary communications point of contact for IPD leadership, faculty, and staff.
• Collaborate with UW Medicine, UW Advancement, Office of Research, and external partners.
• Provide guidance and training to faculty, trainees, and staff on communication best practices.
• Represent IPD in institutional communications initiatives and cross-campus collaborations.

Required Qualifications
To be considered for this opportunity your application must demonstrate you meet both the minimum qualifications and additional qualifications listed below. Equivalent education and/or experience may substitute for minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license,
certification, and/or registration."
Minimum Requirements
Applicants who do not meet these qualifications WILL NOT be forwarded to the Hiring Department.
Master's Degree in Biological Sciences or related field and 4 years of experience in related field.
Advanced Degree and 4+ years of experience in brand, creative direction, and hands-on production across digital/print/presentation media.
Additional Qualifications

• Strong portfolio demonstrating excellence in presentation design, brand systems, and multi-format creative execution (web/digital, editorial/report, social/campaign, video/motion preferred).
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex technical/scientific information into clear, accurate, and compelling visuals for diverse audiences.
• Expert proficiency with modern design and production tooling (e.g., Adobe Creative Suite, Figma; motion/video tools as appropriate) and strong file/asset organization practices.
• Proven ability to manage multiple concurrent priorities with speed, reliability, and high quality; strong stakeholder management and collaborative working style.
• Experience managing budgets, vendors, and complex projects

Preferred Qualifications

• Broad media relations experience and established relationships with science and technology reporters.
• Track record shaping policy conversations and standards through multi-stakeholder initiatives and consensus building.
• Familiarity with communication best practices for development/fundraising
• Experience producing investor/partner decks and institutional materials supporting fundraising, partnerships, or corporate strategy (IR-style rigor and polish).
• Experience in biotech, AI/ML-enabled science, healthcare, or adjacent technical domains; comfort working with researchers and technical leaders.
• Experience directing events/experiential creative (conference presence, signage, environmental graphics) and/or building scalable design systems for distributed teams.
• Familiarity with accessibility best practices for visual communication and multi-channel content delivery.

Working Environmental Conditions:
This role requires flexibility to meet time-sensitive deliverables associated with major talks, donor/partner engagements, paper releases, and institutional events. Some evening/weekend availability may be needed during peak cycles. Occasional domestic travel may be required for conferences, partner events, and major IPD milestones.
Compensation, Benefits and Position Details
Pay Range Minimum:
$120,000.00 annual
Pay Range Maximum:
$138,000.00 annual
Other Compensation:
Benefits:
For information about benefits for this position, visit https://www.washington.edu/jobs/benefits-for-uw-staff/
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