Sr. Scientific Research Writer

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Overview

The Yale School of Nursing (YSN) seeks a Senior Scientific Research Writer to provide high-level scholarly writing, editorial, and strategic research communication support for the Center for Aging Well and YSN’s broader research enterprise. This role supports faculty investigators and interdisciplinary research teams with a focus on aging, dementia, neurodegenerative disorders, lifestyle interventions, and lifespan health.

The position is designed with flexible effort (variable FTE) and will support externally funded research initiatives, grant development, manuscript preparation, and evidence synthesis aligned with YSN’s strategic research priorities. 1-year fixed duration with possible continuation.

Reporting Relationship

The Senior Scientific Research Writer reports directly to the Director of the Center for Aging Well, Yale School of Nursing, and works in close collaboration with YSN faculty investigators, center leadership, and research development and grants administration staff. The role engages with interdisciplinary collaborators across Yale schools and affiliated academic partners.

Essential Duties

Grant Writing and Research Development

• Lead and co-develop competitive grant applications to federal agencies (including NIH, NIA, NIMH, NINR, NSF, CMS, HRSA, and PCORI), private foundations, and other extramural sponsors.
• Draft and edit major proposal components, including Specific Aims, Significance, Innovation, Research Strategy, Approach, Preliminary Studies, Environment, and Impact.
• Translate complex scientific concepts into clear, persuasive, and methodologically rigorous narratives aligned with sponsor priorities.
• Support proposal resubmissions by synthesizing reviewer feedback and strengthening scientific framing.
• Collaborate on center-level, multi-investigator, and program project proposals.
• Coordinate with research development and grants administration teams to ensure alignment with budgets, timelines, and compliance requirements.

Manuscript Writing and Scholarly Dissemination

• Provide advanced writing and editorial support for peer-reviewed manuscripts, including original research articles, reviews, conceptual frameworks, methods papers, protocols, and policy analyses.
• Draft manuscripts in collaboration with faculty investigators and support journal revisions and resubmissions.
• Advise on journal selection and dissemination strategies to maximize scholarly impact.

Literature Review and Evidence Synthesis

• Conduct comprehensive literature reviews across biomedical, clinical, nursing, public health, and social science domains.
• Lead or support systematic, scoping, and narrative reviews.
• Synthesize evidence into coherent conceptual models, background sections, and evidence-based rationales for grants and publications.

Strategic Research Writing

• Prepare research briefs, white papers, concept notes, and executive summaries for center-level initiatives and leadership use.
• Contribute to strategic research narratives, vision statements, and impact reports.
• Support preparation of materials for foundation briefings and institutional leadership.

Faculty Partnership and Mentorship

• Serve as a strategic writing partner to faculty investigators across career stages.
• Provide coaching and consultation to strengthen scientific writing and grant development skills.
• Support interdisciplinary teams in integrating diverse perspectives into unified research narratives.

Quality Assurance and Compliance

• Ensure adherence to ethical standards, authorship norms, citation practices, and research integrity requirements.
• Maintain accuracy, clarity, and consistency across all written materials.
• Track deadlines and manage multiple concurrent projects in a complex academic environment.

Required Skills and Abilities

1. Extensive experience in scientific writing, research development, or scholarly communications in an academic or health sciences setting.
2. Demonstrated experience contributing to successful extramural grant applications and peer-reviewed publications.
3. Exceptional written communication skills and ability to synthesize complex scientific information.
4. Familiarity with NIH and other federal funding mechanisms and academic publishing standards.
5. Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple projects and deadlines.

Preferred Experience and Education

1. Doctoral degree in nursing, public health, biomedical sciences, social sciences, or a related field.
2. Experience working in a school of nursing, academic medical center, or research-intensive university.
3. Familiarity with research areas relevant to YSN priorities, including aging, dementia, mental health, health equity, or implementation science.
4. Experience supporting multi-investigator or center-level research initiatives.
5. Experience mentoring or advising faculty on scientific writing or grant development.

Principal Responsibilities

1. Strategy development and execution working with collaborators within and outside of the University. Working with leadership to develop and implement a strategic vision and work plans. 
2. Recommend structural or programmatic adjustments, changes or additions based on full knowledge of missions, goals, and objectives.
3. Advise leadership on broad range of strategic, development, and communications issues related to research and policy development opportunities.
4. Manage ongoing partnerships with local, state, national, and non-governmental organizations focused on health research, policy development and implementation.
5. Identify new opportunities for expanding the program within Yale and among other academic and non-academic organizations locally and nationally.
6. Seek external funding opportunities and assist with the submission of grant proposals.
7. New program and fund development, catalyzing program development throughout the University and with external collaborators. Develops the metrics to identify and measure the success of the program.
8. Envision and direct communications to support strong communication and promote visibility of the program both inside and outside Yale through strategic outreach, conference attendance, special events, media and other avenues.
9. Assumes primary accountability to initiate, design, and manage the compilation of program communications; identifying outreach potential and promoting philanthropic and collaborative support of the program.
10. Envision and execute the communications efforts for the program. Contribute to the development and assist in the management of content on the program’s website and monitors all changes and additions to the editorial content.

Required Education and Experience

Bachelor's degree in a related field and seven years of related experience or an equivalent combination of education and experience.