Senior New Areas Researcher - GiveWell

GiveWell’s mission is to help people in need as much as we can by researching the most cost‑effective ways to save and improve lives, sharing our work openly, and directing donations to the programs we believe will do the most good. Our work, which focuses on global health and well-being, is funded by tens of thousands of donors who rely on our research to inform their giving. We’ve grown from directing $1.5 million in 2010 to directing more than $400 million in 2025. We anticipate our total grantmaking is likely to approach or even exceed $1 billion this year, and we are working toward a future that could be several times that scale.

Note: Applications for this role close on November 26, 2026.

Summary

GiveWell is seeking a Senior New Areas Researcher to help direct tens of millions of dollars annually to the most cost-effective interventions we can find. You will have an outsized influence on our funding decisions and help us save and improve lives on a global scale.

The New Areas team grantmaking is divided into three workstreams:

• Core cause areas: Areas for which we devote a significant amount of time developing subject-matter specific expertise and networks, a thorough research agenda, and a large portfolio of grants (e.g., family planning, maternal and newborn health, tuberculosis and HIV).
• Emerging cause areas: A broader set of cause areas for which the New Areas team is starting to build its expertise, networks, and research agenda, and is making initial grants (e.g., medical oxygen, applications of AI to global health).
• Incubators: Supporting external incubators and accelerators to identify potentially cost-effective interventions and create programs that we would be excited to support in the future.

As a Senior New Areas Researcher, you'll create and lead ambitious research agendas related to our portfolios of work and answer complex questions that will inform GiveWell's grantmaking decisions. The researchers on our team combine rigorous evidence review, cost-effectiveness modeling, and thoughtful judgment.

The Role

You will be joining a small grantmaking team to contribute to our ambitious research agenda on new areas. You'll shape a research agenda that brings rigor and creativity to the thorniest questions the GiveWell new areas team faces. Your work will combine empirical evidence review, cost-effectiveness modeling, discussions with subject matter experts, understanding of the broader context, and your own judgment.

What you might work on in your first year:

• Tackle thorny research questions in our existing portfolios: For example, evaluating to what extent oral rehydration solution programs might inadvertently impact exclusively breastfed children, estimating reinfection risk after tuberculosis preventive treatment, and accounting for these concerns in cost-effectiveness estimates.
• Design and oversee learning grants: Help design impact evaluations for new and existing programs and supervise researchers executing that work.
• Build our evidence base in new programmatic areas: Synthesize existing research, commission new reviews, and fund primary data collection to determine whether a new intervention meets GiveWell's cost-effectiveness bar.
• Provide research support to grantmakers: Ensure cost-effectiveness models reflect our best current understanding, stress-testing assumptions and flagging high-uncertainty areas.

Team Structure

Our research department consists of ~70 people organized into eight teams:

• Five domain teams (Livelihoods, Malaria, Nutrition, Vaccination, and Water) focusing on specific areas of grantmaking.
• New Areas team focusing on interventions in domains new to GiveWell.
• Cross-Cutting team focusing on methodological issues, research quality, and overarching research concerns.
• Commons team providing generalized research support, landscaping research, vetting, and publishing.

Team Values

• Truth-seeking: We care deeply and centrally about finding and sharing truth. We post our mistakes publicly and maintain a culture of free-flowing feedback.
• Independence: We focus 100% on finding the most cost-effective opportunities to save and improve lives, without trading off honesty or hiding real beliefs.
• Efficiency: When a research question is unlikely to change our bottom-line recommendation, we drop it quickly.
• Personal impact: A lean research team directing near $1 billion means substantial leverage per team member.
• High performance & collegiality: We maintain a collaborative, high-performing culture with top-tier talent.

Requirements

• A quantitatively oriented advanced degree (e.g., epidemiology, public health, economics, or a related field).
• Substantial professional experience in global health or an adjacent field (program design, M&E, epidemiology, cost-effectiveness modeling, or program funding/implementation at an NGO, bilateral, or multilateral institution).
• Generalist mindset with the ability to get up to speed quickly on new topics and comfortably task-switch.
• Alignment with GiveWell’s mission, high degree of curiosity, legibility in communicating confidence levels, and comfort navigating complex, unstructured problems.

Compensation & Benefits

• Pay Rates:
  • NYC / San Francisco Bay Area: $308,000 USD
  • All other U.S. locations: $280,000 USD
  • International: Equivalent to non-SF/NYC U.S. salary tier in local currency based on historical exchange rates.
• Benefits:
  • Fully funded health, dental, vision, and life insurance premiums for employees and dependents (US-based).
  • 4 weeks paid time off + 1 week org-wide summer break.
  • 16 weeks fully paid parental leave.
  • Home workstation stipend or coworking space membership.
  • 5% employer contribution to 403(b) retirement plan (for US staff).

Eligibility & Location

GiveWell is a remote-first organization. Hiring is currently limited to candidates located in (or willing to relocate to) the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, or Germany. Visa sponsorship is assessed case-by-case for US-based roles only.