Associate Director, Data Science
Merck
- Location
- West Point, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Employment
- Full Time
- Work model
- On-Site
- Level
- Senior
- Salary
- $142.4k – $224.1k/yr
- Posted
- Sep 8, 2026
Skills
About this role
Job Description
About the Organization The Biologics Science and Technology Platforms, Data, Modeling, and Statistics (PDSM) organization is a highly technical, science-forward function embedded within Bio S&T. We partner closely with manufacturing sites, IT, and process engineers to deliver data-driven process insights, statistical modeling, and digital capabilities that accelerate biologics commercialization and manufacturing excellence. Our mission is to bridge the gap between traditional process engineering and modern data science. We build the foundational architectures, digital workflows, and analytical models that underpin every initiative across the biologics network—enabling proactive process monitoring (PPM), continued process verification (CPV), yield optimization, tech transfer, and AI-ready manufacturing. We work hand-in-hand with our IT and manufacturing partners to co-design process analytics platforms. Our team contributes deep bioprocessing domain understanding paired with technical data science capabilities, ensuring the right process parameters and quality attributes are captured, contextualized, and modeled to drive real operational outcomes.
Position
Summary The Associate Director, Advanced Process Analytics & Data Strategy is a technical individual contributor role within PDSM. The primary expectation is hands-on technical contribution applying data science, process modeling, and data architecture to optimize biologics manufacturing. The successful candidate will act as a trusted technical expert, leveraging their bioprocess engineering background to build analytics solutions, drive process standardization, and partner closely with scientists and digital teams. We are seeking candidates who fit the Domain-to-Data Professional profile: A bioprocess, biochemical, or regulated manufacturing engineer who has developed meaningful data science expertise through hands-on work with process, analytical, and batch data. You must be able to apply tools such as Python, R, SQL, and statistical modeling to support process characterization, digital analytics, root-cause investigations, and regulatory-ready manufacturing data products.
Key Responsibilities
1. Biologics Process Analytics & Engineering Strategy Define and drive an advanced process analytics roadmap focused on connecting unit operations (upstream/downstream), process parameters (CPPs), and quality attributes (CQAs) through enterprise data models. Act as the vital bridge between bioprocessing science and data technology—translating complex manufacturing process dynamics into data requirements, and translating data capabilities into scientific and operational value (e.g., yield improvement, cycle time reduction). Lead process-focused data initiatives, assembling cross-functional teams (engineers, scientists, IT) to implement advanced analytics and digital capabilities across biologics manufacturing workflows. 2. Manufacturing Data Architecture & Contextualization Build and maintain a clear data flow map across the biologics manufacturing network, integrating core manufacturing systems (MES, LIMS, PI Historian, SAP, ELN). Lead process data contextualization and ontology mapping. Ensure raw process and analytical data is properly linked across unit operations, sites, and product lifecycle stages to enable seamless tech transfer and comparability studies. Partner with IT to co-design scalable, GxP-compliant data engineering solutions, providing the critical bioprocess domain context required to structure the data correctly for scientific use. Define and enforce data integrity specifications (ALCOA+) to ensure reliability and regulatory compliance across manufacturing data products. 3. Process Monitoring, Modeling & Statistical Enablement Develop and deploy fit-for-purpose dashboards, process visualizations, and analytics to enable Proactive Process Monitoring (PPM), trend identification, and rapid root-cause investigation support. Partner with the