Director, Physical AI for Autonomous Lab Discovery

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine

Cambridge (MA)

On-site

USD 164,000 - 283,000

Full time

9 days ago

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Job summary

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine is recruiting for a Director, Physical AI for Autonomous Discovery to lead the In Silico Drug Discovery team. The role combines AI, robotics, and lab automation to enable autonomous experimentation and data-driven decision-making. The preferred location is Spring House, PA, with possible consideration near Cambridge, MA.

No remote option. The incumbent will guide a multidisciplinary team and partner with IT and Data Science to deploy a secure, agentic

Qualifications

PhD in artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, computer science, engineering, computational biology, or related quantitative field.

Responsibilities

Define and execute the Physical AI strategy, build and lead a high-performing team, and establish a roadmap aligned with scientific priorities and business objectives.
Develop AI models that understand and reason about instruments, samples, reagents, robotic systems, workflows, and laboratory state.
Build adaptive experimental optimization using active learning, Bayesian optimization, reinforcement learning, and multi-objective optimization.
Create systems for physical error detection and correction, including anomaly recognition, root-cause assessment, workflow replanning, recovery actions, and appropriate human escalation.
Develop models that generate hypotheses for experimental failures and recommend discriminating follow-up experiments.
Design agentic and multi-agent systems that coordinate experiment planning, execution monitoring, data interpretation, and decision-making across cycles.
Partner with automation, robotics, data science, engineering, and discovery scientists to deploy reliable closed-loop learning in real laboratory environments.
Embed calibrated uncertainty, safety constraints, monitoring, traceability, and governance into autonomous decision-making.