Program Manager, AI-native Physicist Fellowship

About FirstPrinciples

FirstPrinciples Foundation is a non-profit organization focused on supporting emerging forms of AI-native scientific research and open scientific infrastructure. The Foundation’s work centers around programs, fellowships, and ecosystem-building efforts designed to help researchers explore how frontier AI systems may reshape the scientific process.

The Foundation operates within the broader FirstPrinciples ecosystem, which is developing AI systems and research infrastructure designed to accelerate scientific discovery, including Theo, an AI-native platform for frontier scientific research. This ecosystem gives the Foundation a unique vantage point into how AI-native scientific workflows are beginning to emerge.

Why This Role Exists

We’re launching a new category of scientific programs at the intersection of AI and frontier research, starting with the AI-native Physicist Fellowship. These programs are designed to support researchers developing rigorous AI-native scientific workflows and exploring what AI-native scientific discovery looks like in practice.

This is not a traditional grants program. The fellowship is an early effort focused on understanding how frontier AI systems can be integrated into serious scientific research workflows.

This role exists because these programs require strong operational ownership and active curation. We need someone who can identify high-potential researchers, run high-signal selection processes, build trusted relationships with fellows and advisors, and help create an outstanding experience for researchers working at the frontier of AI and science.

You’ll sit at the center of the program: shaping the cohort, coordinating across advisors and internal teams, and ensuring fellows have the support, infrastructure, and context they need to do meaningful work.

What You’ll Do

• Recruit and source exceptional fellows, researchers, and technical talent globally

• Define and manage the end-to-end fellowship application, review and selection process

• Coordinate and engage with the external advisory committee and reviewers

• Partner closely with the broader FirstPrinciples ecosystem’s technical and research teams to support fellows throughout the program

• Act as a primary operational point of contact for fellows during the fellowship lifecycle

• Organize cohort programming, workshops, onboarding, and communications

• Help refine program operations, processes, evaluation criteria and reporting as the program evolves

• Track and report on program metrics, timelines, budgets, deliverables, and cohort progress

• Build and maintain relationships across the AI + science ecosystem (research labs, universities, communities, conferences, frontier AI organizations, etc.)

• Identify emerging researchers, communities, and workflows at the edge of AI-native science

• Help shape and disseminate the long-term operational playbook for AI-native scientific programs

Who You Are

• Strong experience in program management, operations, recruiting, community-building, talent programs, or ecosystem development

• Hold a PhD in Physics or related field

• Exceptional communicator capable of engaging credibly with researchers, technical teams, and external partners

• Highly organized and capable of managing multiple moving pieces simultaneously

• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and building processes from scratch

• Strong judgment and high ownership mentality

• Have a bias toward action. You move quickly, solve problems proactively, and figure things out in environments with limited precedent

• Experience working with technical or research-heavy teams is a strong plus

• Familiarity with frontier AI, scientific research, academia, startups, or technical communities is required. The ideal candidate has experience operating across multiple of these environments.

• Bonus points if you naturally gravitate toward identifying exceptional talent, emerging communities, or unconventional thinkers before broader institutions recognize them.

Why Join

• Help shape one of the earliest large-scale AI-native scientific fellowship programs

• Work closely with frontier researchers, builders, and technical teams exploring the future of scientific discovery

• Operate at the intersection of AI, research, and frontier science

• Build programs that could meaningfully influence how future scientific research is conducted

• Help define a new category of scientific infrastructure for the AI era