Assistant Director for Life Design/Life Design Educator for Biomedical Engineering (Life Design Lab)

Johns Hopkins University•Baltimore, MD

12d•Hybrid

About The Position

Johns Hopkins University has developed an ambitious vision to continue to integrate life design, experiential learning, and mentoring in the academic and co-curricular learning experience for all students and postdoctoral fellows. We are seeking an Assistant Director for Life Design/Life Design Educator for Biomedical Engineering who will report to the Senior Director of the Life Design for Undergraduate Education and will execute on the Life Design Lab’s vision, strategy, and objectives to enhance and deliver the professional development, career advancement, and life design offerings for biomedical engineering undergraduate students. As an equity-based office that believes all of our students have the same opportunity to pursue their life purpose regardless of background, field of study, or social capital, each Life Design Educator is expected to co-create, collaborate, and support all of our students; however, this position has a particular focus on the undergraduate student population within the biomedical engineering major portfolio. The Life Design Educator will become familiar with the novel approach to career readiness and life design established at Johns Hopkins University and implement programs, scalable support systems and create content to connect critical mindsets, frameworks, and approaches with their designated student population. There will be an emphasis on scalable solutions to support our student population. Furthermore, the Life Design Educator will work with Directors and Associate Directors within the Undergraduate Education and broader Life Design teams to continue working with key partner stakeholders that include departmental leadership, faculty, campus partners, community partners, alumni, and employers. Maintaining critical and established relationships will be imperative to the Life Design Educator’s success. Over the year, the Life Design Lab offers credit-bearing and non-credit-bearing coursework driven by our unique life design curriculum. The Life Design Educator will spend time serving as a teaching assistant or facilitator for the formalized curriculum for our student population. The Life Design Lab’s efforts are also driven by initiative-based high impact programs that span the academic calendar. Life Design Educators are expected to actively participate in planning and executing programs that impact our entire undergraduate student population throughout the year. The ideal candidate is comfortable with co-working and flexible work arrangements. Our educators work within multiple offices and spaces on campus. Rather than assigning office or desk spaces to our teams, we have modernized our approach and assigned laptops and cell phones and expect that our teams can work from anywhere to scale our impact across the institution. For this model to work, the ideal candidate must present excellent relationship development skills and engage audiences in groups and via social media and digital outlets. The ideal candidate is entrepreneurial, data and outcomes-driven, strong in planning and execution, comfortable leading programs and interventions with groups, and enjoys developing relationships and connections with multiple stakeholders at once. Our new vision is focused on the scalability of resources and services and does not utilize a one-on-one appointment model. Traditional one-on-one counseling and coaching services are taking a backseat to a culture of scalable programs and interventions for this transformation to work.

Requirements

Master's Degree required.
Three years of experience in higher education, nonprofit, government, or employer-facing roles focused on student success, equity, or workforce readiness.
Ability to work independently and as part of a team to achieve individual and shared goals within a complex and decentralized institution.
Strong multicultural competency and demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with diverse stakeholders to achieve equitable and inclusive results.
Comfortable with technology and able to quickly learn and use a wide range of systems (Handshake, Salesforce, PeopleGrove), collaboration tools (Zoom, Teams, Miro, Monday), and instructional technologies (Blackboard, etc.).
Listen and communicate convincingly in written and verbal formats.
Knowledge of highly selective college or university settings, and familiarity with operations of the world of work and university networks.
Knowledge of industry recruitment standards.
Ability to translate student experiences to employment as evidenced by prior experience in either a government, non-profit, education, or private sector setting.
Additional education may substitute for required experience, and additional related experience may substitute for required education beyond a high school diploma/graduation equivalent, to the extent permitted by the JHU equivalency formula.

Nice To Haves

By way of experience, evidence of ability to develop and execute programs, courses, events, and content to scale impact across various constituent groups.
Experience in presenting or facilitating in both in-person and online formats.
Experience creating content (video, digital, written) and utilizing social media for the purposes of engaging and educating diverse audiences, and influencing public opinion.
Experience in developing and implementing effective assessment methods and articulating strategic priorities.

Responsibilities

Execute on integrating life design, alumni connections, employer engagement, experiential learning, and mentoring into the academic and co-curricular learning experience for students and alumni at scale, with special attention paid to a prescribed portfolio of students and industries relevant to biomedical engineering fields.
Design and implement workshops, programs, content, and digital resources to support our biomedical engineering students’ career readiness and life design needs at scale, grounded in current best practices and emerging trends.
Design and lead the Biotech Internship Academy, a structured career pathway that introduces students to biotechnology careers through skill development, experiential learning, alumni mentorship, and employer engagement to secure competitive internships and full-time roles.
Track and analyze student career outcomes, in partnership with the Office of Digital Transformation, including pathway participation, internship attainment, and full-time placement, using data to strengthen programming, expand employer pipelines, and improve conversion rates.
Develop early-exploration programming that helps first- and second-year students understand biotechnology career options, timelines, and required experiences.
Support in the delivery of Life Design curriculum and signature offerings to students (e.g. the Life Design Summer Experience Practicum course, intersession or department sponsored courses, and employer visit treks).
Customize offerings and approaches given unique needs of students and alumni based on identity and values, academic pursuits and professional interests.
Partner with the Life Design Lab Employer Engagement team to develop employer relationships, coordinate recruitment activities, and increase internship and employment opportunities for biomedical engineering students.
Collaborating with Life Design Lab staff to build and maintain a network of employers and mentors across varied careers who can attend courses, programs, and networking events.
Partner with faculty, alumni, and employers to increase mentoring, experiential learning, and career opportunities for students and alumni.
In partnership with Life Design Lab leadership, cultivate and strengthen relationships with colleagues across units, including, but not limited to, academic departments, academic advising, life design lab, alumni relations, Hopkins Connect, and international services.
Engage in social media, digital outlets, and academic and professional journals and associations to establish an exciting brand, tell the story, and serve as a thought leader at Johns Hopkins University and higher education.
Other duties as assigned.