Director of Applied AI for Academic Initiatives

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The Director of Applied AI for Academic Initiatives leads the College's applied use of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies across research, teaching, learning, and student development. The role is deliberately cross-disciplinary: it works with a chemist evaluating whether agentic systems can open new experimental avenues as readily as with a colleague in student affairs studying how these tools affect student development.
With a designee of the Office of the Provost, the Director helps establish and lead a new AI Exploration Lab. The Lab is not only a teaching and learning space. A central part of its purpose, and of this role, is to shepherd and curate student-led research: helping students scope viable questions, pairing them with faculty mentors and appropriate tooling, and bringing their work to a standard worth showing. The Director also tracks external funding in this domain and helps faculty pursue it.
The Director works in close partnership with the Learning Design team and the Center for Inclusive Excellence in Teaching, contributing applied artificial intelligence expertise to the work they lead. It is a role for someone as credible in a faculty research conversation as in a technical one, and who understands that the most useful answer is sometimes to recommend against the technology.

Job Description

Major Areas of Responsibility

Research enablement and domain acceleration

• Partner with faculty across disciplines to evaluate where artificial intelligence, including agentic systems, can genuinely advance research, from literature synthesis and experimental design through data analysis and interpretation.

• Assess feasibility in laboratory and computational disciplines, such as whether agentic approaches can open new avenues in biochemical research, and design pilots with the faculty who would use them.

• Advise on research computing needs, tooling, data handling, provenance, and reproducibility in artificial-intelligence-assisted scholarship.

• Support faculty and staff studying the impact of artificial intelligence on student development and co-curricular life, contributing to the design of that inquiry and to the interpretation of its findings.

AI Exploration Lab and student-led research

• Help establish and lead the AI Exploration Lab in partnership with a designee of the Office of the Provost, including its purpose, operating model, and terms of responsible experimentation.

• Shepherd and curate student-led research: help students scope viable questions, pair them with faculty mentors and suitable tools, guide method, and bring completed work to a standard worth presenting or publishing.

• Curate the Lab's models, tools, and environments, maintaining a clear-eyed assessment of what each is and is not good for.

• Move promising projects from idea to prototype, drawing on engineering capacity within Information Technology Services.

External funding and partnerships

• Identify and track grant and fellowship opportunities in artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, and bring credible fits to the attention of individual faculty and departments.

• Support proposal development with technical narrative, architecture, data management plans, and realistic computing budgets, in coordination with the College's sponsored research and advancement colleagues.

• Build relationships with peer institutions, consortia, funders, and vendors, including institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

Teaching and learning, in partnership

• Partner with the Learning Design team and the Center for Inclusive Excellence in Teaching, contributing applied artificial intelligence expertise to the course design, pedagogical practice, and inclusive teaching work they lead.

• With the Center for Inclusive Excellence in Teaching, examine how these tools affect students differently, including questions of access, accessibility, and whether AI assistance widens or narrows gaps between students.

• Establish means, technologies, and assessment approaches that deliberately constrain or remove artificial intelligence from learning experiences where desirable difficulty is the goal, and help faculty implement them with confidence.

• Advise on assignment and assessment design that remains rigorous in an environment of ubiquitous artificial intelligence.

Governance, policy, and horizon scanning

• Contribute to institutional artificial intelligence governance and policy in partnership with the Office of the Provost and Information Technology Services leadership.

• Advise on evaluation, procurement, privacy, accessibility, academic integrity, and research data considerations for artificial intelligence tools.

• Monitor the emerging technology landscape and advise College leadership on what merits investment, what merits a pilot, and what merits restraint.

Collaboration across Information Technology Services

• Work closely with the Principal AI Solutions Engineer and the AI Solutions Engineer to turn faculty and student ideas into working systems.

• Coordinate with colleagues in Data Architecture, Enterprise Systems, and Information Security so that applied work is sound, secure, and supportable.

• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Master's degree in learning design, instructional technology, education, a relevant disciplinary field, or a closely related area. Doctorate preferred.

• Five or more years of relevant professional experience, including experience in higher education.

• Demonstrated expertise in learning design or instructional design, with a record of substantive partnership with faculty.

• Demonstrated experience supporting faculty research or scholarly work, and the credibility to hold a research conversation across unfamiliar disciplines.

• Working knowledge of contemporary artificial intelligence tools and their application, including large language models and agentic systems, together with the judgment to evaluate them critically rather than enthusiastically.

• Experience mentoring or advising student research, or a demonstrated aptitude for it.

• Familiarity with grant-seeking or sponsored research support is preferred.

• Familiarity with learning science, including the roles of retrieval practice, spacing, and desirable difficulty in producing durable learning.

• Evidence of building something new, such as a program, lab, or practice, rather than only operating something established.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical matters to non-technical audiences.

• Experience in a liberal arts setting preferred.

Core Competencies

Role-specific

• Applied artificial intelligence and emerging technology fluency

• Faculty and student research partnership

• Learning design expertise

• Cross-disciplinary translation

• Program and lab building

• External funding awareness

• Governance and policy judgment

• Critical evaluation of technology

College-wide

• Collaboration: Exchanging information, ideas, and thoughts with others in a manner that is proactive and enhances partnerships

• Inclusion: Actively engaging with the values of the College by promoting a work environment that embraces diversity and demonstrating respect for the opinions and beliefs of others

• Innovation: Performing one’s job with creativity and proactivity, improving procedures and problem-solving

• Mission/Service Orientation: Focusing on service to others and contributing to the College’s collective mission

• Responsibility: Taking ownership of one’s actions and accountability for one’s tasks and duties.

Salary: The salary range for the Director of Applied AI for Academic Initiatives position is $137,000–$145,000, commensurate with education, experience, and qualifications.

Weekly Hours:

40

Annual Work Schedule:

12 month

Application Instructions

An updated resume and cover letter are required as a part of your internal application. In your cover letter, please reflect on how your professional and personal values align with the Mission of the College of the Holy Cross to form individuals of integrity and purpose who are committed to the flourishing of all.

Additional Information
To review our generous benefits options, please review our detailed information here or check out our Benefits at a Glance. 

The College also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities during the hiring process in compliance with law. Please contact Human Resources for questions or to request an accommodation via email at [email protected], or by calling 508-793-3391. 

The College is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and complies with all Federal and Massachusetts laws concerning Equal Opportunity in the workplace.