Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Position Title/Short Description

Full Text of JOE Listing:

Program Director, Economics

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a not-for-profit, mission-driven grantmaking institution dedicated to improving the welfare of all through the advancement of scientific knowledge. Founded in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., then-President and CEO of General Motors, the Foundation makes grants in four broad areas: direct support of research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and economics; initiatives to increase access and opportunity in graduate science education; projects that develop or leverage technology to empower research; and efforts to deepen public engagement with science and scientists.

Headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City, the Foundation holds assets of approximately $2.2 billion and commits roughly $80–$95 million in grants annually. It is one of the largest private funders of economic research in the United States, with a grantmaking history that has had measurable impact on the rate and direction of academic activity in economics. The Foundation’s mission is guided by a commitment to impartial, evidence-based inquiry—free of ideology and driven by the highest standards of rigor.

The Economics Program

The Sloan Economics Program funds fundamental, rigorous economic research that serves as a public good—expanding knowledge of key economic forces, developing new evidence and methodologies, informing decision-makers, and improving economic and social welfare in the United States. The program’s goal is to provide conceptual breakthroughs, technical advances, and fundamental research that strengthen and accelerate U.S. economic progress.
Current research priorities include:
•The Economics of Science and Technology, including industrial strategy, emerging technologies, regional development, scientific careers, funding practices, and the productivity of the scientific enterprise.
•The Economics of Caregiving, including data and research on the U.S. care economy and its implications for labor markets and policy.
•The Economics of Transportation and Infrastructure, examining how transportation systems and mobility shape economic outcomes.
•Economic Measurement, supporting new datasets, methodologies, and computational tools that advance the quality of empirical economics.
•Strengthening the Economics Profession broadly, through support for conferences, training programs, and research resources of general use.

These priorities reflect our current grantmaking, not a ceiling on ambition. The incoming Program Director will have meaningful latitude to evolve the program's direction as the research landscape and their own intellectual judgment suggest

Grants made in the Economics program are especially policy-relevant (though not advocacy), motivated by nonideological questions, causally rigorous, statistically sound, and oriented toward generating catalytic results in high-quality journals or durable contributions to research infrastructure.

Position Overview

Reporting to the President, the Program Director for Economics will serve as the intellectual and operational leader of the Foundation’s Economics program. The Program Director will develop and execute a coherent grantmaking strategy, build and sustain a portfolio of high-impact grants, and represent the Economics program to the Foundation’s Board of Trustees, grantees, peer funders, professional associations, and the broader research community.

Grantmaking at the Foundation is a shared and collaborative endeavor. The Program Director will be an active member of the program committee—composed of Program Directors and the President—reading and evaluating proposals across all Foundation programs, contributing economic expertise to colleagues’ work, and drawing on colleagues’ insights to strengthen the Economics program. The Foundation is especially interested in identifying opportunities for interdisciplinary grantmaking and opportunities connecting different program areas.

The Program Director will manage a team of two, a Program Associate that is an early career Ph.D. and a Program Coordinator.

Key Responsibilities

Set Strategy and Develop the Grantmaking Portfolio

•Develop and periodically revisit the vision, priorities, and strategic direction of the Economics program, in consultation with the President and Program Director colleagues and in light of emerging opportunities in the field. The Program Director will have genuine latitude to reshape the program's priorities, wind down grantmaking approaches that have run their course, and pursue emerging opportunities in collaboration with Program Director colleagues at the intersection of different program areas where Sloan can make a distinctive contribution.
•Identify gaps in the research landscape where Sloan’s resources can make a significant and durable difference—particularly where private-sector, government, or other foundation funding is insufficient.
•Build the grant portfolio through outreach to leading researchers, attendance at academic conferences, and broad engagement with the economics community worldwide.
•Assess the impact of existing grantmaking strategies and propose changes where appropriate.

Manage Grants and Grantee Relationships
•Oversee all aspects of grantmaking in the program, from initial letter of inquiry through proposal review, grant approval, ongoing monitoring, and closeout.
•Maintain close, productive relationships with grantees—providing guidance and serving as an engaged partner throughout the life of each grant.
•Apply rigorous, meticulous standards in the preparation and scrutiny of grant proposals and program evaluations, consistent with the Foundation’s lean staff structure.
•Lead periodic formal evaluations of grantmaking programs and of the Economics program as a whole.
•Determine appropriate metrics of program success—whether growth in the field, publication impact, policy uptake, or changes in research infrastructure—and draw insights from outcomes.

Build Collaborative Relationships
•Participate fully in the collective intellectual life of the Foundation, including the weekly program committee and cross-program proposal review.
•Collaborate with other Program Directors on grants at the intersection of economics and science policy, energy, environment, higher education, technology, and public understanding of science.
•In particular, demonstrate interest in collaborating with other Program Directors on cross-program grantmaking at the intersection of economics and other fields, such as supply chain analysis, the economic and policy dimensions of science and technology, research infrastructure, and other related cross-program topics.
•Develop and sustain an advisory body of leading scholars to provide strategic guidance, benchmark quality, and surface emerging research opportunities.
•Represent the Economics program externally to peer foundations, government agencies, professional associations, disciplinary societies, and the media.
•Foster collaborative grantmaking with other funders where appropriate.

Advance Access and Opportunity in Economics
•Champion the Foundation’s commitment to reducing all barriers that inhibit fair access and opportunity to scientific and economics training and careers.
•Ensure the grantmaking process, including proposal development, reviewer selection, and program evaluation, includes meaningful and concrete attention to removing unjust barriers to access and opportunity.
•Work in coordination with the Higher Education program to surface and support opportunities that advance fair access and opportunity for all talent within economics and related fields.

Qualifications and Experience

The Foundation seeks an intellectually ambitious and collegial leader who combines deep scholarly engagement in economics with the judgment, creativity, and administrative capacity to build and manage a major grantmaking program. The Foundation is open to a variety of professional backgrounds and recognizes that no single candidate will possess every qualification listed below.
The successful candidate will bring many of the following:
•A doctoral degree in economics or a closely related field; a record of scholarly achievement equivalent to that of a tenured professor is strongly preferred.
•Deep knowledge of the economics research landscape—including leading researchers, major institutions, funding trends, and the methodological frontier—across multiple subfields.
•A demonstrated commitment to rigorous, impartial empirical research; excellent scientific taste and judgment; a keen sense for what constitutes a significant and tractable research question.
•Experience conceiving, designing, and implementing strategic initiatives—whether in academia, government, philanthropy, or the nonprofit sector.
•Strong familiarity with U.S. universities, research institutions, and the academic career pipeline.
•Intellectual breadth and curiosity; an entrepreneurial spirit and willingness to think across disciplinary boundaries.
•Exceptional written and oral communication skills; ability to engage credibly with both specialists and broad audiences.
•A natural affinity for relationship-building, teamwork, and collaborative work; genuine generosity of spirit toward colleagues and grantees alike.
•Facility with data, econometrics, and empirical methodology; interest in research infrastructure and economic measurement is preferred.
•Both intellectual curiosity and humility—the desire to help others realize success and the ability to derive intellectual enrichment from the creative process of grantmaking.

Work Arrangements and Compensation

This is a full-time position based at the Foundation’s offices at Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan. Staff are expected to work in the office Tuesday through Thursday; remote work is available on Mondays and Fridays except when job commitments require in-person presence. The Foundation offers competitive compensation and exceptional benefits commensurate with the seniority of the role.

The salary range for this position is $375,000 – 425,000

To Apply

Applications should be sent to pdsearch@sloan.org. Please attach a single PDF containing both a cover letter and curriculum vitae, named “Last Name - Program Director.pdf.”