Director Research Data Governance

In collaboration with institutional leadership and key stakeholders, the Director of Research Data Governance will develop, implement, and enhance a comprehensive data governance program spanning foundational science, translational research, clinical research, clinical care, and enterprise analytics. The successful candidate will own the research data governance vertical (foundational and translational research) and collaborate with other institutional functions to support data governance across the remaining verticals. The candidate will align the research governance operating model with existing enterprise governance bodies and decision-rights structures to ensure consistent escalation paths and reporting across domains.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is where those with a passion for making a difference come to break new ground. Located in Memphis, Tennessee, St. Jude leads the way the world understands, treats, and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases through groundbreaking research and compassionate care.
We are seeking a highly motivated Director of Research Data Governance to lead the institution’s research data governance strategy and its efforts in responsible data stewardship, governance, and enablement across foundational and translational research, positioning trusted research data as an accelerator of scientific discovery and AI readiness.
Vision and Impact
The Director of Research Data Governance will champion a culture in which data is recognized as a trusted institutional asset, driving innovation, compliance, and translational impact. This role will:
Unify foundational and translational research data governance under a single vision.
Articulate and champion the institutional business case for research data governance, demonstrating how trusted data assets increase the quantity and quality of multidisciplinary research, accelerate scientific discovery, reduce duplicative effort and expenditure, and unlock scalable AI/ML capabilities.
Recognize that effective research data sharing depends on trust, clear expectations, stewardship, and collaboration, and on pairing data with the expertise of those who generated it.
Empower scientists, analysts, and administrators to become active stewards of data.
Collaborate with clinical research, clinical, administrative and operations counterparts to establish unified methodologies and vertical accountability.
Enable AI- and ML-ready datasets with transparent provenance and governance.
Complete foundational work ahead of broad AI expansion, establishing governance, catalog, and identifier standards as prerequisites to scaling AI-enabled science.
Build trust and interoperability across institutional data ecosystems.
In collaboration with institutional leadership and key stakeholders, the Director of Research Data Governance will develop, implement, and enhance a comprehensive data governance program spanning foundational science, translational research, clinical research, clinical care, and enterprise analytics. The successful candidate will own the research data governance vertical (foundational and translational research) and collaborate with other institutional functions to support data governance across the remaining verticals. The candidate will align the research governance operating model with existing enterprise governance bodies and decision-rights structures to ensure consistent escalation paths and reporting across domains.
Reporting to the Vice President of Data Sciences & Chief of Artificial Intelligence, and partnering closely with the Senior Director of Data Science, this leader will:
Establish a culture of data stewardship for research by working closely with data generators and data custodians to develop data-sharing practices that couple access to data with the domain expertise of those who generated it.
Build a core team of 2-3 people within the Office of Data Science that acts as the central hub of a federated model, establishing, training, and empowering a network of departmental data stewards across departments and Shared Resources, and takes on data governance roles and duties, including the adoption of standards, education, and reporting.
Build and operationalize policies, processes, and technologies to ensure data is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR), secure, and compliant.
Foster the medallion system for data maturity (bronze, silver, gold) and encourage a shared mindset among researchers to prioritize and generate high-quality, reusable data products.
Lead institutional efforts to standardize governance across research domains.
Align governance practices with institutional IS, privacy, security, and compliance standards.
Promote a culture of data stewardship, education, and accountability to support research excellence.
Collaborate with institutional leaders to embed governance practices into scientific workflows and analytics programs.
Co-design with institutional leadership incentives at the department, program, and institution levels to foster data stewardship that accelerates the translation of research into tangible patient outcome improvements and operational efficiencies.
Key Relationships
Senior Vice President and Chief Data Scientist
Senior Vice President and Deputy of the Scientific Director, responsible for Shared Resources
Executive Vice President and Scientific Director
Key personnel running Data-Intensive Projects and Data Governance programs, including
Vice President of Analytics and Information Services
Director of Data and Analytics Program Governance
Chief Information Security Officer
Institutional Review Board Chair
Chief Data Protection Officer
St. Jude Global Data Governance Lead
Biomedical Library
Senior Vice President of Technology Commercialization
Office of General Counsel and functions therein
Chair of the St. Jude Unique Identifier Committee
St. Jude Unique Identifier Governance Council members
Chair of the Data Brokers Committee
International Data Access Governance Council members
Clinical Research Informatics
Chief Information Officer
Chief Medical Informatics Officer
Vice President of Research Information Services
Key personnel who generate data, including
All St. Jude Centers of Excellence and Shared Resources, in particular:
Biorepository and Tissue Bank
Biostatistics Shared Resource
Center for Applied Bioinformatics
Center for Biomedical Informatics
Center for Proteomics and Metabolomics
Center for Spatial Omics
Hartwell Center
Microbial Biorepository
Biostatistics Department Chair
Center for Applied Bioinformatics Director
Clinical Genomics Division Director
Comprehensive Omics and Molecular Evaluation Team Leads
Computational Biology Department Chair
Developmental Neurobiology Department Chair
DISCOVER Directors
DIVIA / Planet9 Global Data Generators
Epidemiology and Cancer Control Department Chair
Good Manufacturing Practice Director
Hematology Department Chair
Imaging Sciences Department Chair
Pathology Department Chair
Radiology Department Chair
Radiation Oncology Department Chair
St. Jude Cloud Controlled Access Committee
St. Jude Cloud Technical Leads
All stakeholders of the Data Science Committee
The Director will be responsible for:
Governance: Define the research data governance strategy, rooted in institutional scientific priorities and in the business processes and success metrics of key stakeholders, and scope the governance program to serve it. Drive business case development, value-realization tracking, and executive advocacy for foundational data initiatives, translating governance activities into measurable institutional impact (e.g., accelerated study startup, reduced data-wrangling overhead, and cross-departmental data reuse). Map institutional Data Governance Efforts. Develop and implement a Research Data Governance Charter aligned with institutional and regulatory standards (FAIR, HIPAA, GDPR, DAMA-DMBOK, NIST). Constitute a cross-functional Research Data Governance Working Group (spanning ODS, Information Services, Compliance, Legal, Clinical Operations, and departmental representatives), operating within the Data Science Committee, and endorse the governance charter within 90 days of the Working Group convening. Publish a cross-domain operating model for decision rights, escalation, and reporting that interfaces cleanly with enterprise and domain governance. Maintain a multi-year governance roadmap supporting mission and compliance objectives.
Data Catalog: Create and maintain the Research Data Catalog to ensure consistent data definitions, quality, and stewardship practices, and to establish a standard RACI for owner, steward, and custodian responsibilities for priority datasets. Where possible, generalize prov

Skills
Artificial Intelligence, Clinical Research