Principal Scientific Data Curator

Principal Scientific Data Curator 12-Month Contract Fully Remote $55–$58/hour Johnson & Johnson is seeking a highly experienced Senior Scientific Data Curator to support enterprise-level curation, metadata strategy, and data governance across preclinical, translational, and clinical R&D. This is a fully remote, year-long contract role supporting high-impact analytics, regulatory readiness, and cross-program data integration in a fast-paced, regulated pharmaceutical environment. This role sits at the intersection of science, data platforms, and product leadership and partners closely with clinical, data science, engineering, and IT teams across the organization. Key Responsibilities Enterprise Data Curation & Annotation • Provide expert curation and annotation of complex scientific and clinical data assets, including: • Anatomical and tissue data • Assay and experimental metadata • Biomarker and multi-omics datasets • Clinical trial and clinical operations data • Real-World Data (RWD) • Medical imaging data • FDA and regulatory feedback artifacts • Perform SDTM-aligned curation to support regulatory compliance and submission readiness. • Curate oncology clinical trial laboratory, biomarker, and imaging datasets for downstream analytics and reporting. • Support microbiome and metagenomic sequencing studies through metadata sourcing, annotation, and quality review. Metadata Strategy, Ontologies & Standards • Design, implement, and maintain enterprise metadata frameworks, controlled vocabularies, and cataloging standards. • Apply disease, literature, and ontology-based annotations to enable cross-study and cross-program data integration. • Harmonize metadata across preclinical, translational, and clinical domains. • Define, monitor, and continuously improve data quality control (QC) metrics and validation processes. • Support data modeling efforts aligned with platform architecture and analytics use cases. Platform Enablement & Automation • Partner closely with data platform engineering teams to enable scalable ingestion and curation workflows. • Collaborate with software developers to design and implement automation for metadata population and validation within the enterprise data catalog. • Curate and integrate data from internal and external sources, including: • cBioPortal • GTEx • Open Targets • TCGA • UniProt • Leverage enterprise engineering tools and workflows, including HTML and Git/GitHub. Data Governance & Compliance • Contribute to enterprise data governance initiatives, including stewardship models, data standards, and data lifecycle management. • Ensure curated data assets meet expectations for auditability, traceability, and regulatory inspection readiness. • Promote and operationalize FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) across the data platform. Cross-Functional Leadership & Product Ownership • Provide technical project leadership across clinical, translational science, data science, and IT stakeholders. • Act as an internal product owner for data catalog and curation capabilities by: • Gathering and prioritizing user requirements • Tracking feature requests and defects • Coordinating testing and validation with end users • Partner with platform teams and external vendors to align roadmap priorities and delivery timelines. • Apply Agile methodologies to manage deliverables in a regulated pharmaceutical environment. Scientific & Therapeutic Area Expertise • Apply scientific domain expertise across multiple therapeutic areas, including: • Oncology • Cardiovascular diseases • Gastrointestinal diseases • Immune and infectious diseases • Metabolic diseases • Neurologic diseases and neuroscience • Virology • Support preclinical (in vivo rodent) and wet-lab data curation with a strong focus on translational relevance. Qualifications & Skills • PhD in a life sciences discipline with strong grounding in biology and experimental data interpretation. • Experience supporting enterprise data platforms within pharmaceutical or biotech R&D environments. • Deep understanding of clinical trial data standards, metadata management, and regulatory considerations. • Proven ability to bridge scientific, technical, and product-focused teams. • Excellent written and verbal communication skills for both scientific and non-scientific audiences.