Job Title: Research Fellow (ENABLE Programme)
University-Level Unit: Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Faculty/Department-Level Unit: Dean-Med-Centre for Biomedical Ethics
Employee Category: Research Staff
Location_ONB: Kent Ridge Campus
Posting Start Date: 04/11/2026
Job Description
Join a World-Leading Centre in Bioethics
The Centre for Biomedical Ethics (CBmE) at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS), invites applications for a Research Fellow position. Recognised internationally for excellence in bioethics research and education, CBmE is home to a vibrant interdisciplinary community of scholars working across philosophy, medicine, public policy, law, and the social sciences.
The successful candidate will be based at CBmE and supervised directly by Professor Julian Savulescu and Associate Professor Brian D. Earp, Directors of the Ethics of Neuroscience, AI, Biotechnology and Life (ENABLE) programme. Rather than joining a single project team, this position offers a unique opportunity to work across the full portfolio of ENABLE-funded research and to help shape the programme as a coherent whole.
The Research Programme
The Research Fellow Will Provide Research And Administrative Support Across All Six ENABLE-funded Projects, Working Directly With Each Project's Principal Investigator(s)
- Professor Rickie Patani – “Computing with Conscience: Ethical Frameworks for Living Neural Networks,” on the moral status and governance of closed-loop biocomputational platforms.
- Assistant Professor John Chua Jia En – “Brain Organoid Ethics for Mental Health,” on the ethics of using long-term human brain organoids to model psychiatric disorders.
- Associate Professor Camilo Libedinsky (with Assistant Professor Bian Yatao) – “Exploring Fundamental and Psychological Foundations of Ethical Research on AI Sentience,” on the philosophical and empirical basis for attributing sentience to AI systems.
- Assistant Professor Bian Yatao (with Associate Professor Camilo Libedinsky) – “A Proactive Governance Framework for Biological AI,” on intrinsic alignment and extrinsic biosecurity guardrails for biological foundation models.
- Associate Professor Yan Zhang – “Perceived Fairness of AI-Generated Deepfakes” and “The Creator-Consumer Divide in AI-Assisted Content,” on public attitudes toward generative AI content.
- Professor Lee Yung Seng and Adjunct Assistant Professor Chng Seo Yi – “Ethics of Generative AI in Paediatric Healthcare,” on the ethics of ambient AI scribes and synthetic data in paediatric care.
Working closely with each project team, the Research Fellow will help coordinate research activities and timelines, support grant administration and reporting to the ENABLE Directors, and assist individual PIs with literature reviews, study design, and manuscript preparation where needed. The role will also involve supporting and writing grant proposals – both for renewal or extension of existing ENABLE projects and for new funding opportunities that build on the programme's cross-cutting themes. Beyond this support role, the Research Fellow will take an active, synthesising role across the programme: identifying shared themes, methods, and mutual research interests that cut across the six projects – for example, common questions of moral status and sentience attribution spanning the neuroscience and AI-focused projects, or shared governance and public-trust challenges across the biosecurity, healthcare, and AI-generated content projects – and using these connections to broker collaboration between project teams.
A core output of the role will be original research and publications that draw on more than one ENABLE project, synthesising cross-cutting findings into papers, review articles, or edited collections. Candidates with broad training across bioethics, philosophy of mind, and technology ethics, and with strong synthesis and project-coordination skills, are particularly well suited to this role.
Qualifications
Applicants should possess:
- A PhD (or be close to completion) in Bioethics, Philosophy, or a closely related discipline, with broad familiarity across neuroethics, AI ethics, and biomedical ethics.
- A strong track record of publication, or demonstrated potential for publication, in leading Q1 bioethics, philosophy, or related journals.
- Demonstrated ability to synthesise across disparate literatures and identify shared themes or arguments across seemingly unrelated research areas.
- Strong project coordination and administrative skills, including experience supporting grant reporting, timelines, or multi-investigator research programmes.
- Experience supporting or writing grant proposals, including familiarity with funder requirements, budgeting, and proposal timelines.
- Excellent written and spoken English communication skills, including the ability to engage substantively with scientists, clinicians, and technologists across disciplines.
- The ability to work both independently and collaboratively across multiple concurrent research teams and projects.
The Following Are Advantageous But Not Required
- Experience organising workshops, seminars, or other activities that bring together researchers from different disciplines or project teams.
Req ID: 34917