Open Positions

Thank you for being so interested in joining our group! Impactful research requires quality mentoring relationships. Prof. Zitnik is the recipient of the 2022 Young Mentor Award at Harvard Medical School—this prestigious award acknowledges that recognition to her.

Graduate students

We are taking on new PhD students every year.

If you are a current or a newly admitted PhD student interested in AI, machine learning and/or applications in genomics, therapeutics, medicine, and health, email Prof. Zitnik directly. Include your CV and a brief description of your research interests.

We are recruiting PhD students from a number of graduate programs, including Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics, Biomedical Informatics, Systems Biology, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, programs within Harvard Integrated Life Sciences, and other programs at Harvard.

We also recruit graduate students from Health Sciences & Technology at Harvard and MIT and other programs at MIT.


Postdoctoral research fellows and students in AI & therapeutics

We are building the next generation of Therapeutics Commons!

Zitnik Lab founded Therapeutics Commons, a global open-science initiative to access and evaluate AI across therapeutic modalities (small molecules, macro-molecules, cell and gene therapies) and stages of drug discovery (from target discovery, activity modeling, efficacy, and safety, to manufacturing and post-marketing safety monitoring and drug repurposing).

We are seeking outstanding postdoctoral research fellows and students, machine learning and data specialists, biomedical AI fellows, and an AI community manager who will lead research in AI to advance molecular drug design and clinical drug development.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Interested candidates are encouraged to submit their applications as soon as possible.

NOW OPEN: Request For Applications


Postdoctoral research fellows in foundation AI

We have multiple openings for postdoctoral research fellows in the broad area of foundation models focusing on geometric deep learning, multimodal learning, large-scale knowledge graphs, large language models, generative AI, and AI agents.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Interested candidates are encouraged to submit their applications as soon as possible.

NOW OPEN: Request For Applications


Postdoctoral research fellows with Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard is now accepting applications for exceptional postdoctoral fellows.

We are seeking candidates with research interests in any area of machine learning, statistics, or applied mathematics that could drive the frontier of biomedical research. While experience in machine learning or related fields is critical for the role, prior exposure to biology or medicine is advantageous but not required.

Indicate your interest in working with Prof. Zitnik and Zitnik Lab in your application.

NOW OPEN: Request For Applications


Harvard/MIT undergraduates, Masters’s students, Harvard affiliates

We are looking for outstanding Harvard undergraduates, Masters’s students, and other Harvard affiliates on a rolling basis. While we take students at all levels, excellent grades and/or prior experience in machine learning/AI is a plus. Generally, we expect:

  • Students commit 20 hours per week to research (ideally more).
  • Students commit to at least 6 months of research with the lab (ideally more).
  • Prior experience in AI and machine learning may include online courses. We encourage students to self-study relevant coursework. In addition, we provide mentoring on cutting-edge research.

Email Prof. Zitnik. Include your CV, current academic status, a summary of research experience, and brief highlights of projects.


Visitors, interns, and short-term students

We generally prefer visitors to stay for at least 6 months to carry out a high-quality research project.

Because of the large email load that Prof. Zitnik receives, she may not respond to all applicants. Do not take this personally! We do review all applications!


Harvard is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Latest News

Nov 2023:   Next Generation of Therapeutics Commons

Oct 2023:   Structure-Based Drug Design

Geometric deep learning has emerged as a valuable tool for structure-based drug design, to generate and refine biomolecules by leveraging detailed three-dimensional geometric and molecular interaction information.

Oct 2023:   Graph AI in Medicine

Graph AI models in medicine integrate diverse data modalities through pre-training, facilitate interactive feedback loops, and foster human-AI collaboration, paving the way to clinically meaningful predictions.

Sep 2023:   New papers accepted at NeurIPS

Sep 2023:   Future Directions in Network Biology

Excited to share our perspectives on current and future directions in network biology.

Aug 2023:   Scientific Discovery in the Age of AI

Jul 2023:   PINNACLE - Contextual AI protein model

PINNACLE is a contextual AI model for protein understanding that dynamically adjusts its outputs based on biological contexts in which it operates. Project website.

Jun 2023:   Our Group is Joining the Kempner Institute

Excited to join Kempner’s inaugural cohort of associate faculty to advance Kempner’s mission of studying the intersection of natural and artificial intelligence.

Jun 2023:   Welcoming a New Postdoctoral Fellow

An enthusiastic welcome to Shanghua Gao who is joining our group as a postdoctoral research fellow.

Jun 2023:   On Pretraining in Nature Machine Intelligence

May 2023:   Congratulations to Ada and Michelle

Congrats to PhD student Michelle on being selected as the 2023 Albert J. Ryan Fellow and also to participate in the Heidelberg Laureate Forum. Congratulations to PhD student Ada for being selected as the Kempner Institute Graduate Fellow!

Apr 2023:   Universal Domain Adaptation at ICML 2023

New paper introducing the first model for closed-set and universal domain adaptation on time series accepted at ICML 2023. Raincoat addresses feature and label shifts and can detect private labels. Project website.

Apr 2023:   Celebrating Achievements of Our Undergrads

Undergraduate researchers Ziyuan, Nick, Yepeng, Jiali, Julia, and Marissa are moving onto their PhD research in Computer Science, Systems Biology, Neuroscience, and Biological & Medical Sciences at Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and UMass Lowell. We are excited for the bright future they created for themselves.

Apr 2023:   Welcoming a New Postdoctoral Fellow

An enthusiastic welcome to Tianlong Chen, our newly appointed postdoctoral fellow.

Apr 2023:   New Study in Nature Machine Intelligence

New paper in Nature Machine Intelligence introducing the blueprint for multimodal learning with graphs.

Mar 2023:   Precision Health in Nature Machine Intelligence

New paper with NASA in Nature Machine Intelligence on biomonitoring and precision health in deep space supported by artificial intelligence.

Mar 2023:   Self-Driving Labs in Nature Machine Intelligence

Mar 2023:   TxGNN - Zero-shot prediction of therapeutic use

Mar 2023:   GraphXAI published in Scientific Data

Feb 2023:   Welcoming New Postdoctoral Fellows

A warm welcome to postdoctoral fellows Wanxiang Shen and Ruth Johnson. Congratulations to Ruthie for being named a Berkowitz Fellow.

Zitnik Lab  ·  Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Science  ·  Harvard  ·  Department of Biomedical Informatics