Senior Scientist, Ensemble–Function Mapping

About Astera:

Astera is a private foundation on a mission to steer science and technology toward a better future. We believe the coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement as exponential progress in AI converges with central advances in other fields to accelerate innovation. This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity to fundamentally rethink the institutions, systems, and tools that drive progress. We have committed a $3.5B endowment to that work and fit the form of our support to the function it serves: grants, investments, and in-house research programs. We accept meaningful risk in the research we back and expect some of it to fail because transformative ideas are rarely the ones already proven. Our projects, and the foundation itself, operate like high-velocity startups, with a high performance bar and competitive compensation to match. We are searching for leaders who are compelled by the challenge of driving high-impact change in the way science is funded, conducted, and communicated. You can read more about our mission, vision, and programming at astera.org/vision.

About Prism:

Prism is making protein motion measurable, predictable, and actionable. Proteins are always moving, and that movement drives their function: binding, catalysis, allostery, selectivity, and mutational effects all emerge from conformational ensembles, the distribution of states a protein moves between. Yet most structural data rests on static snapshots that capture form, not function, because motion has been hard to measure and interpret. As a result, we lack critical levers to correct proteins in disease and engineer them for new purposes. Prism is building open, usable tools, methods, and infrastructure to study protein dynamics from experimental data, and applying them to pressing biological questions, including binding affinity, enzyme engineering, and explaining pathogenic variants. Prism sits with Radial, Astera’s Life Sciences Division.

About Radial:

Radial is Astera's life sciences division. We tackle foundational problems in biology while simultaneously prototyping better ways to fund, organize, and share research. Radial builds programs in-house, funds external teams, and designs partnerships in service of public-good science.

Position Summary:

The Astera Institute is seeking a full-time Senior Scientist, Ensemble–Function Mapping to lead a computational team that turns conformational ensembles into predictions of protein function. This growing team will develop methods that connect ensembles to allosteric coupling, catalytic efficiency, and binding specificity, and build the platforms and pipelines that test which structural data matter most. The goal is a landmark finding that links ensembles to function. This position reports to the Scientific Program Director.

Responsibilities:

• Lead Prism's research connecting conformational ensembles to function. Direct the scientific vision to predict and explain allosteric coupling, catalytic efficiency, and binding specificity, and drive that work toward high-impact findings.

• Manage and mentor a team of multiple scientists and recruit additional hires with expertise in machine learning and statistical mechanics.

• Work with the Scientific Program Director to determine strategy and prioritization of approaches, systems, and science within your team.

• Partner with Prism's modeling and encoding team, alongside the Scientific Program Director, to ensure cohesion across the project.

• Build platforms and analysis pipelines that measure how different types of structural data, and the ensemble models derived from them, change functional predictions. Validate them on well-chosen test cases.

Qualifications:

• PhD in a relevant area; at least 4 years of work experience.

• Experience managing a team of scientists.

• Background in computational biophysics, with a record of research that connects protein structure or dynamics to function.

• Experience with machine learning approaches that link protein structure to function.

• Experience working extensively with at least one type of experimental structural data (X-ray, EM, NMR, HDX-MS).

• An execution-forward approach. You move from hypothesis to working analysis quickly and let results guide the next step.

• Clear communication with modelers, experimentalists, and external collaborators, including the ability to explain what a finding means and what it doesn't.

• Nice to have: working knowledge of multiple experimental structural biology methods.

• Nice to have: fluency in the mechanistic literature on allostery, conformational selection, and binding specificity.

Cultural Alignment:

• Surprising problem-solver – you love finding unexpected solutions to problems we don't even know we have, and see options where others only see constraints.

• Flexible by default – you don't draw hard lines around your job description and expect your role to evolve significantly over 6–12 months.

• Bias to action – you launch and iterate on thoughtful experiments rather than waiting for perfect plans, and you're energized by novel problems.

• High standards, internally driven – you believe you can build the world's best vehicle for unleashing extraordinary individuals to create public goods.

• Open to feedback – you create opportunities to give and receive honest feedback, staying focused on both personal and team growth.

• Operate with the highest levels of integrity, judgment, and stewardship — you treat peers and vendors with genuine respect for their time and contributions.

• Embrace the tools that define great work today – Astera is building for an AI-driven future and equips the team accordingly.

Location:

This position is on-site at our Emeryville, CA location. Some travel (~10%) will be required for in-person collaboration and presentations. Relocation packages will be considered.

Compensation:

This role's pay range is $200,000 – $250,000 per year based on experience, skills, and location.

Benefits:

• Top-tier health insurance plans with 99% of premiums covered by Astera for employees and dependents

• Daily lunch that brings the full office together, plus a well-stocked fridge and pantry

• Licenses for frontier AI tools and software

• 403(b) retirement plans, flexible paid time off, paid parental leave, commuter benefits, and health and dependent care FSAs

• Visa sponsorship

Equal Opportunity Employment & Accommodations

Astera Institute is an equal opportunity employer and is invested in fostering a culture where everyone can thrive. We are committed to equity and inclusion, and we encourage women, people of color, LGBTQIA individuals, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, older members of society, and others from minority communities and diverse backgrounds to apply.

Astera Institute is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in the job application and interview process. If you need an accommodation, please contact us at [email protected], and we will work with you to meet your needs.