Join Us

Since 2009, the Flagship Pioneering Fellowship has offered an unparalleled opportunity to apply scientific expertise, entrepreneurial talent, and a self-starter mentality toward creating the next world-changing startups and ventures in human health and sustainability.

We are seeking outstanding scientists, engineers, inventors and budding entrepreneurs who are eager to create first-in-category biotech companies from scratch. A summer as a Flagship Pioneering Fellow is an intense and exciting opportunity to work hand-in-hand with Flagship’s seasoned
professionals through our uniquely entrepreneurial scientific exploration process and build breakthrough bioplatform companies that change the world.

If you’re considering an alternative path from academia that allows you to remain engaged in creative science, Flagship’s Fellowship offers a balance of freedom of thought, imagination, science rooted in reality, and rigorous business practice.

Flagship Pioneering Fellows work in teams, asking “What if” or “If only.” Starting with a blank sheet of paper, Fellows leverage their scientific instincts and creativity to generate novel scientific concepts that go beyond the scientific literature and challenge dogma. Fellows then learn to iterate, challenge, and shape these ideas into unreasonable yet compelling venture hypotheses with the potential to produce pioneering new ventures.

When you work with us you will experience our unique methodology for creating first-in-class, first-in-category life science companies.

Key benefits include:

• Learn Flagship Pioneering’s unique process of generating and refining actionable pioneering hypotheses
• Exhibit and develop your creativity, adaptability, and ability to innovate
• Contribute to the creation of game-changing ideas & innovations with the potential to become breakthrough companies
• Work directly with the highly experienced Flagship Pioneering team—a group of widely recognized scientists, entrepreneurs, innovators, and executives
• Build relationships and expand your network with a diverse and successful cohort of peers
• Explore opportunities to become a full-time member of the Flagship Pioneering team

• Meeting with CEOs from Flagship’s portfolio companies, such as Moderna, Indigo Agriculture, Syros Pharmaceuticals and others
• Meeting with former fellows who have “graduated” to new careers in developing fields
• Talks from and discussion with experts in functional life science areas such as clinical trials, drug development, and other subjects
• Engagement with dozens of leading scientists and subject matter experts around the world through the Exploration process
• Offsite visits to Flagship Pioneering portfolio companies
  
• Social events with summer cohort and Flagship team at large

The Flagship Pioneering Fellowship serves as an important pipeline in recruiting for foundational roles at Flagship Pioneering, including:

• Associate positions within the Flagship Labs origination and innovation group
• Foundational, ground-level leadership positions at cutting-edge Flagship-founded companies

Graduates of the Fellowship have also gone onto exciting careers in life science, including:

• Science-centric roles at leading academic and research institutions, such as Stanford, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Broad Institute, Whitehead Institute, MIT, Koch Institute and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub
• CEOs/founders of their own companies and startups
• Scientists and leaders in global biotech and pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca, Alnylam and Biogen

The application to the 2023 Fellowship is now closed. If you have questions about the Fellowship please contact Fellowship Director Bradley Coleman.

• The Flagship Pioneering Fellowship requires a full-time commitment from June 5, 2023 – August 25, 2023
• Flagship Pioneering Fellows receive a stipend and work at the Flagship Pioneering offices in Kendall Square (55 Cambridge Parkway, Cambridge, MA)

Qualifications

• Deep scientific background in biology, chemistry, engineering, or related scientific fields
• Completed or within the final year of a professional scientific degree (PhD, MD) or another professional degree (e.g., JD, MBA) with evidence of a strong scientific background
• Demonstrated leader, effective communicator, and strong team player
• Record of scientific and academic excellence and creative in the ability to solve complex scientific problems
• Willingness to challenge dogma
• Self-starter mentality
• Available for full time employment in Boston/Cambridge no later than May 2024

Flagship Pioneering’s unique approach to creating first-in-category bioplatform companies is founded on the notion that there is great value in unconventional and unexpected ideas. We also believe that Pioneering is best done in teams, and that teams who welcome and champion the perspectives of talented professionals with diverse personal and professional experiences lead to the biggest leaps and scientific breakthroughs. As a result, we actively seek Fellows that represent diverse racial, cultural, educational, socioeconomic, and lived experiences and pledge to support them as individuals and members of the Flagship community.

Since Flagship’s founding in 2000, we have created companies leveraging advances in computing, big data and AI. In recent years, this trend has accelerated with first-in-category life science companies such as Generate Biomedicines, Cellarity, Valo, Apriori, and many others creating breakthrough innovations using AI and ML technologies.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) track of Flagship Pioneering’s Fellowship provides an unrivaled opportunity for individuals to apply the latest computational advances through our pioneering venture creation process. We are looking for extraordinary computational scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to learn our unique company creation process and work alongside individuals within the Flagship Ecosystem focused on solving the most impactful challenges in AI and the life sciences.

Flagship Pioneering AI Fellows will:

• Contribute to the creation of game-changing ideas & innovations based on AI and ML models that can be developed into the next breakthrough companies
• Contribute to the development of novel computational tools and methods to accelerate breakthrough innovations in health and sustainability
• Leverage data generated by Flagship companies to build ML models and uncover valuable scientific insights

The application to the 2023 AI Fellowship Track is closed.

Qualifications

• Completed or within the final year of a MS or PhD program in computer science, statistics, applied mathematics, physics, computational biology or another discipline with a strong quantitative focus
• Deep research and/or industry experience in at least one of the following fields: machine learning, robotics, computer vision, computer simulation, computational biology, computational neuroscience, computational chemistry or any other field where AI/ML can be deployed at scale
• Deep understanding of statistical and algorithmic principles in data science
• Experience using various programming languages to implement ML algorithms
• Demonstrated leader, effective communicator, and strong team player
• Record of scientific and academic excellence and creative in the ability to solve complex scientific problems
• Willingness to challenge dogma
• Self-starter mentality
• Available for full time employment in Boston/Cambridge no later than May 2024