Who we are

We’re a non-profit that runs courses on some of the world’s most pressing problems. We’re looking for Teaching Fellows to guide weekly discussion calls with students on our pandemics course.

The course brings together hundreds of people from across the world to learn about, discuss and build solutions to key issues in biorisk and pandemic preparedness. 

We’ve run the course with 550 participants from 70 countries, including staff at the World Health Organisation, US CDC, Africa CDC, US National Security Council and UK Health Security Agency.

You can learn more about BlueDot Impact on our website.

What is a Teaching Fellow?

Our course facilitators guide 1-2 groups through the course. They have weekly discussion calls with each group of 6-8 students to help them understand the course topics, dig deeper into specific areas of interest and support participants with steps after the course.

Teaching fellows are facilitators who support 5-10 groups. They are on part- to full-time contracts, and are more closely involved with ongoing curriculum and discussion doc development.

We’ve seen that compared to standard facilitators, Teaching Fellows tend to:

• Deliver higher-quality learning experiences
• Be better equipped to accelerate the impact of their participants after the course
• Provide more nuanced feedback on the curriculum

We created this role because we are excited to work more closely with facilitators to improve their teaching skills and continuously improve the course material. We believe these improvements will help deliver higher-quality learning experiences to participants and accelerate their impact.

What you’ll do

Teaching Fellows will:

• Facilitate 5-10 groups
• Work closely with the course designer to improve the curriculum and discussion docs
• Offer 1-1 calls with participants to support their learning and actions

We’ll support you with discussion docs and training. You’ll also gain access to a private Slack channel with other facilitators and the course lead to ask for help and give us feedback.

You’ll start in the week of February 2, 2025. The fellowship will last 16 weeks. The time commitment is roughly 2-3 hours per group per week: so 12-30 hours per week for 5 to 10 groups.

We’ll arrange the discussions at times that fit with both your and our participant’s availability. This is highly flexible, as we have demand at almost all times (including weekdays, weekends, and anytime of day or night). The times will remain fixed week-to-week.

About you

We are looking for someone who is passionate about supporting the next generation of researchers, policymakers and biosecurity entrepreneurs.

You might be particularly good for this role if you:

• Previously facilitated a BlueDot Impact course or any other learning experiences using active learning techniques.
• Have engaged with the materials in our curriculum or have an equivalent level of knowledge in biosecurity.
• Have experience working in biosecurity, pandemic preparedness, public health or similar.
• Feel motivated to improve your students’ learning quality and support your students in building a pandemic-proof world.

We encourage speculative applications; we expect many strong candidates will not meet all the criteria listed here.

Location and compensation

This position is fully remote, and we accept applications from anywhere in the world.

Compensation is based on the number of group discussions you facilitate, in line with our standard facilitator rates:

Based on data from previous Teaching Fellows about how much preparation and other work is required, this corresponds to a rate of £27-40/hour (note this is indicative, and actual pay will be via fixed unit rates). The range depends on how familiar you already are with the material, and how many groups you take.

We sometimes disband or re-shuffle groups due to attendance. You may also volunteer to cover other facilitator’s facilitated group discussions. In either of these cases, we will update your compensation in line with our standard facilitator rates.

Apply for this role

The application process consists of two stages:

• Stage 1: Initial application (<20 minutes).
• Stage 2: Interview (30 mins).

The interview will involve you hosting a practice facilitated group discussion with interviewers role-playing as participants.

The deadline to apply as a Teaching Fellow is 2 weeks before the main course deadline. You can apply as a standard facilitator until the main course deadline