Enterprise Ontologist & Semantic AI Architect

ThermoFisher Scientific; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 84,000 - 127,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical plan

Dental plan

Vision plan

Employee assistance

PTO + holidays

401(k) plan

ESPP

Job summary

Thermo Fisher Scientific is seeking an Enterprise Ontologist to design, govern, and extend the semantic models powering the Enterprise Knowledge Graph and AI-focused experiences. You will work across scientific, content, product, AI, data science, and engineering teams to translate complex domains into scalable structures that improve search, discovery, data interoperability, and AI performance.

You will help maintain accurate ontologies aligned with evolving scientific and business needs,

Qualifications

• Experience with ontology engineering, knowledge graphs, or semantic data models.
• Scientific or biomedical knowledge models and AI/search apps preferred.
• Ability to translate complex information into scalable semantic models.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and govern enterprise ontologies and semantic models for EKG and AI apps.
• Model scientific, product, and operational concepts using taxonomies and external ontologies.
• Collaborate with SMEs and tech teams to translate requirements into scalable models.
• Establish ontology governance, standards, lifecycle, provenance, and change management.
• Develop mappings across taxonomies, external ontologies, data sources, and KG entities.
• Enable AI capabilities including semantic search, content classification, and RAG.
• Evaluate ontology effectiveness and identify improvements for retrieval and AI performance.
• Provide ontology guidance and training to diverse stakeholders.

Skills

Ontology engineering

Knowledge representation

Semantic modeling

Knowledge graph design

OWL RDF SKOS

Life-science terminology

Technical translation

Communication

Analytical thinking

Systems thinking

Collaboration

Travel readiness

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree preferred

Tools

Neo4j

PostgreSQL

Ontology management tools

Job description

Thermo Fisher Scientific is seeking an Enterprise Ontologist to design, govern, and extend the semantic models powering the Enterprise Knowledge Graph and AI-focused experiences. You will work across scientific, content, product, AI, data science, and engineering teams to translate complex domains into scalable structures that improve search, discovery, data interoperability, and AI performance.

You will help maintain accurate ontologies aligned with evolving scientific and business needs,