Clinical Operations Lead in San Francisco, California at Convergent Research

(formerly Forest Neurotech)

Arbor is a nonprofit research organization working on one of the hardest open problems in clinical neuroscience: how to change brain circuits by design.

Millions of people with depression, chronic pain, and other brain disorders have no treatment that works. Modulating activity in the brain circuits underlying their symptoms – with electrical stimulation, focused ultrasound, or magnetic stimulation – can work spectacularly well. But it doesn't work reliably, and we can't predict who it will help.

That's what Arbor aims to fix. The starting point is a new class of experiment: intervene, measure how the circuit responds, track the symptom, and repeat in the same individual over months. We’re building the necessary experimental platform. It currently includes the Forest 1 ultrasound system, which works like a wearable functional MRI, but with higher resolution. The system images activity across large brain volumes, including deep brain structures, and will soon stimulate as well. We are also adding electrode-based interfaces in animal studies. From these data, we'll build models to make neuromodulation predictable.

Arbor is a Focused Research Organization within the Convergent Research family, and the new name for Forest Neurotech. We're a mission-focused nonprofit, doing multidisciplinary translational work that doesn't fit in a lab or on a company roadmap. We have the funding to run the first phase, and we're a small team – the people we hire now will shape what Arbor becomes.

Build the clinical program:

• Partner with scientific leadership on clinical strategy: which sites and partnerships and where our incentives align

• Develop and own a recruitment program from a small and geographically scattered participant pool

• Qualify and onboard clinical partners

• Help design what at-home studies will require, from participant experience through logistics and safety

Run the studies:

• Lead start-up for internal and external studies

• Own our IRB submissions and ongoing interactions

• Manage participant scheduling, visits, follow-up, payments, and travel

• Coordinate device deployment, equipment readiness, and study-specific technical support; you don't need to run experiments, but you should be able to troubleshoot them

• Establish and maintain TMF, document control, clinical SOPs, and the personnel training program

• Own adverse event tracking and reporting

Where you start will depend on your strengths and on what the program needs most. This won't stay one person's job as Arbor grows.

The successful candidate will have:

• Substantial experience in human clinical research operations

• Enough scientific training to engage substantively with clinicians and researchers and to step in and help run a study when we need it. Advanced training, ideally a PhD in a relevant field, is the most common route, but not the only one

• The written and spoken communication skills to explain the research to participants and collaborators and to produce final drafts of key documents

• The organizational and interpersonal skills to keep everyone moving in the same direction, often with no established process to follow

• The ambition to build clinical infrastructure, not just run it

• Directness without friction – you say what you think, ask when you don't know, and aren't looking to compete with your colleagues

Nice to have: background in neuroscience, neuroimaging, neuromodulation; work with hospitals, academic medical centers, or external clinical research partners; early-stage medical device or biotech experience; familiarity with ICH-GCP, ISO 14155, and FDA medical device requirements; experience with QMS, CTMS, or eTMF systems; AE/SAE reporting, monitoring, CAPAs, and audit readiness.

Our benefits include:

• Medical, dental, and vision – most plans fully covered for you and your dependents

• 401(k) with up to 6% match

• Company-paid life and AD&D, with voluntary supplemental options

• 15 holidays plus a floating day for your birthday

• 3 weeks PTO increasing with tenure, and separate sick leave

Arbor will consider sponsorship for U.S. work authorization case by case. Sponsorship isn't guaranteed, and immigration timelines can affect start dates. Where we sponsor, we cover the legal and government fees.

Arbor is an equal opportunity employer. We hire based on talent and experience and don't discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.