Principal Ontologist - R&D DDSAI - Preclinical Sciences & Translational Safety

At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at jnj.com

As guided by Our Credo, Johnson & Johnson is responsible to our employees who work with us throughout the world.  We provide an inclusive work environment where each person is considered as an individual.  At Johnson & Johnson, we respect the diversity and dignity of our employees and recognize their merit.

Job Function:

Data Analytics & Computational Sciences

Job Sub Function:

Data Science

Job Category:

Scientific/Technology

All Job Posting Locations:

Beerse, Antwerp, Belgium, Cornellà de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain, Madrid, Spain, Spring House, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Job Description:

We are seeking a Principal Scientist/Ontologist to join our R&D DDSAI team, dedicated to developing and supporting ontologies, controlled vocabularies, and semantic data standards for PSTS.

This hands-on scientific and technical role will establish consistent terminology across PSTS projects, translate scientific knowledge into reusable semantic models, and strengthen connections between PSTS and other departments across the R&D pipeline. Working closely with scientific subject matter experts, data scientists, data engineers, and technology partners, you will help make scientific data easier to find, understand, integrate, and reuse.

The successful candidate combines expertise in ontology engineering with an understanding of pharmaceutical research and a collaborative approach to solving complex scientific data challenges.

Key Responsibilities

Ontology Creation & Terminology Standardization

• Design, develop, test, and maintain ontology modules and controlled vocabularies supporting PSTS scientific workflows, including toxicology, safety assessment, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, and translational research.
• Partner with PSTS scientists to capture scientific concepts, definitions, relationships, and experimental context, translating these into well-structured semantic models.
• Harmonize terminology across projects, studies, assays, and data sources while preserving scientifically meaningful distinctions.
• Develop mappings between project-specific terminology, shared R&D ontologies, and relevant external standards, prioritizing reuse over unnecessary duplication.

Project Support & Adoption

• Serve as a primary ontology and terminology resource for PSTS project teams, supporting requirements gathering, semantic annotation, data mapping, and issue resolution.
• Partner with data engineers and platform teams to incorporate ontology terms and mappings into data products, metadata systems, and scientific workflows.
• Provide practical documentation, examples, and training that help scientists and technical teams adopt standardized terminology.
• Maintain a prioritized backlog of ontology enhancements and support requests aligned with PSTS scientific needs.

Cross-R&D Interoperability

• Collaborate with peer ontologists and scientific data teams across discovery, development, therapeutic areas, and other R&D functions.
• Establish shared definitions that connect PSTS evidence with upstream discovery and downstream development data.
• Identify opportunities to reuse ontology components and improve cross-study and cross-functional data integration.

Governance, Quality & Lifecycle Management

• Apply modeling guidelines, naming conventions, persistent identifiers, version control, change management, and release practices.
• Maintain traceable definitions, mappings, provenance, and documentation of modeling decisions.
• Assess the impact of ontology changes on consuming projects and coordinate updates with scientific and technical stakeholders.

Analytics & AI Readiness

• Help ensure PSTS datasets retain the scientific context needed for reliable interpretation and reuse.
• Evaluate approaches to terminology extraction and mapping automation, with appropriate scientific review.

Qualifications

Required

• Master’s degree or Ph.D. in Biomedical Informatics, Bioinformatics, Life Sciences, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Hands-on experience developing and maintaining ontologies, controlled vocabularies, semantic models, or knowledge graphs for scientific or biomedical applications.
• Experience with ontology development tools (e.g., Protégé, OWL/RDF) version control, and scripting for data transformation and validation.
• Ability to translate scientific requirements into clear, reusable semantic structures.
• Strong communication, problem-solving, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Ability to manage multiple workstreams and deliver practical solutions in a matrixed environment.

Preferred

• Experience with pharmaceutical R&D data, particularly toxicology, safety sciences, ADME/DMPK, pathology, or translational research.
• Familiarity with relevant biomedical ontologies and regulatory data standards, including CDISC/SEND.
• Experience integrating semantic models into data pipelines, metadata catalogs, or knowledge graph platforms.
• Understanding of FAIR data principles, provenance, reproducibility, and quality-governed scientific environments.
• Experience facilitating cross-functional agreement on terminology and supporting adoption of shared standards.
• Experience leveraging open-source biomedical ontologies (e.g., GO, BAO) to support harmonization, annotation, integration, and reuse of bioassay and experimental data across discovery and development workflows.

Why This Role Matters

You will help turn fragmented scientific terminology into a shared, reusable foundation for PSTS research. Your work will strengthen scientific data connections across the R&D pipeline, improve evidence reuse, and enable more effective analytics and AI-supported research.

Johnson & Johnson is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by federal, state or local law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Johnson & Johnson is committed to providing an interview process that is inclusive of our applicants’ needs. If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request an accommodation, external applicants please contact us via https://www.jnj.com/contact-us/careers, internal employees contact AskGS to be directed to your accommodation resource.

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Required Skills:

 

 

Preferred Skills:

Advanced Analytics, Coaching, Critical Thinking, Data Analysis, Data Privacy Standards, Data Quality, Data Reporting, Data Savvy, Data Science, Data Visualization, Digital Fluency, Econometric Models, Organizing, Process Improvements, Strategic Thinking, Technical Credibility, Workflow Analysis

 

 

The anticipated base pay range for this position is :

Additional Description for Pay Transparency:

Subject to the terms of their respective plans, employees are eligible to participate in the Company’s consolidated retirement plan (pension) and savings plan (401(k)).



This position is eligible to participate in the Company’s long-term incentive program.



Subject to the terms of their respective policies and date of hire, employees are eligible for the following time off benefits:

Vacation –120 hours per calendar year

Sick time - 40 hours per calendar year; for employees who reside in the State of Colorado –48 hours per calendar year; for employees who reside in the State of Washington –56 hours per calendar year

Holiday pay, including Floating Holidays –13 days per calendar year

Work, Personal and Family Time - up to 40 hours per calendar year

Parental Leave – 480 hours within one year of the birth/adoption/foster care of a child

Bereavement Leave – 240 hours for an immediate family member: 40 hours for an extended family member per calendar year

Caregiver Leave – 80 hours in a 52-week rolling period10 days

Volunteer Leave – 32 hours per calendar year

Military Spouse Time-Off – 80 hours per calendar year

For additional general information on Company benefits, please go to: - https://www.careers.jnj.com/employee-benefits