Academic Partnerships Director

Beacon Biosignals is seeking a scientifically and clinically credentialed, relationship-driven Academic Partnerships Director to grow adoption of the Beacon Platform, including the research use of its medical devices, within academic and research institutions. This role will build and manage relationships with principal investigators (PIs), academic medical centers, core facilities, and research consortia whose studies in neurology, psychiatry, and sleep are funded through NIH, NSF, foundation, and other grant mechanisms. The role will identify, cultivate, and secure partnership opportunities to leverage Beacon’s physiology evidence generation infrastructure for labs studying the brain, build evidence for translational medicine applications, develop novel biomarkers, generate longitudinal data sets, or other use cases, in the context of grant-funded or foundation-sponsored research from early proposal development through study execution.

This role will start as a senior independent contributor in the Life Sciences Commercial organization, reporting directly to the President of Life Sciences and Chief Business Officer. The position could evolve over time to incorporate additional responsibilities in academic alliance management and team leadership as Beacon’s academic and grant-funded research portfolio priorities grow.

This is a remote position with periodic travel to customer meetings, academic conferences, and site visits. In-person hubs are preferred in Boston and New York City.

What success looks like:

• Build and manage a portfolio of relationships with PIs, academic medical centers, core facilities, and research consortia pursuing NIH, NSF, foundation, and other grant-funded studies in neurology, psychiatry, and sleep-related disorders.
• Partner with PIs during proposal development to position Beacon’s Waveband EEG platform and analytics capabilities as the preferred solution for grant-funded studies, and support the scientific and budgetary narrative in the grant-writing phase.
• Apply a working command of U.S. academic grant funding cycles and mechanisms (e.g., R01, R21, U01, SBIR/STTR, foundation and philanthropic grants) as well as EU and other international regulatory frameworks relevant to academic research, and use that knowledge to time outreach and shape proposals.
• Grow and steward relationships with academic core facilities and research consortia, identifying opportunities for institution-wide or multi-site adoption of Beacon’s platform.
• Own account-level pipeline generation, negotiation, and closing for academic and grant-funded opportunities, and record activity and forecasts in Beacon’s CRM.
• Represent Beacon at relevant academic and scientific conferences (e.g., SLEEP, SfN, ACNP, ASSC) and build a network among grants administrators, research development offices, and technology transfer offices.
• Serve as a credible scientific thought partner to PIs and research teams, translating Beacon’s technology and data assets into clear value for specific study designs and aims.
• Collaborate with Program Management, Clinical Operations, Marketing, and Scientific teams to ensure academic partnerships are scoped accurately and delivered successfully.
• Provide leadership with visibility into pipeline health, win/loss patterns, and emerging opportunities across the academic and grant-funded segment.
• Manage and extend the Academic strategy, including pricing structure, to align to the priorities of academic partners and Beacon

What you will bring:

• MD with training in psychiatry or neurology, or PhD in neuroscience.
• 3+ years of experience in business development, academic partnerships, alliance management, or a related commercial role, ideally supporting grant-funded research, core facilities, or academic medical centers.
• Firsthand familiarity with the academic research and grant funding environment, gained through prior lab, postdoctoral, or research administration experience.
• Strong scientific acumen, with experience in neuroscience, sleep science, or a related clinical research domain preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to translate strategic and commercial context into actionable operational briefs for delivery teams
• Exceptional interpersonal skills, with a demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships with PIs, research administrators, and academic leadership.
• A track record of self-generated pipeline, managing not only inbound interest but also building new interest with PIs, core facilities, and consortium relationships through creative demand generation that become revenue generating partnerships
• Entrepreneurial mindset, comfortable navigating the long and often unpredictable timelines of academic funding cycles while managing a disciplined pipeline.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to build compelling proposal language and presentations for scientific and administrative audiences.
• Ability to use CRM tools to track accounts and opportunities.
• Experience contracting with academic institutions, including Tech Transfer Offices and Legal teams.
• Willingness to travel for conferences, site visits, and internal meetings, 1-3 times per quarter.
• Empathy for all stakeholders, including academic researchers, research administrators, co-workers, and most of all patients.

The base salary range for this role is determined based on past experience, specific skills, and qualifications. The base salary is one component of the total compensation package, which includes incentive compensation, equity, PTO, and other benefits.

At Beacon, we’ve found that cultural and scientific impact is driven most by those that lead by example. As such, we’re always seeking new contributors whose work demonstrates an avid curiosity, a bias towards simplicity, an eye for composability, a self-service mindset, and, most of all, a deep empathy towards colleagues, stakeholders, users, and patients. We believe a diverse team builds more robust systems and achieves higher impact.