Innovation Scout Fellowship

Our mission at Halo is to move science forward. A Fast Company "World Changing Idea" and one of Wellfound's Top 10 B2B Startups of 2025, Halo’s platform connects scientists directly with companies to bring new innovations to the world. We work with the R&D teams at global, iconic companies – including Bayer, P&G and PepsiCo – on topics ranging from sustainability to human health. Since going live in January 2020, more than 16,000 scientists and science-led startups from 130+ countries have joined. We are venture-backed by Asymmetric Capital, Village Global, Lightbank, AngelList Ventures (invests in top .1% of startups), Marketplace Capital, Lenny Rachitsky’s Air Angels (Airbnb angel group) and other top-tier investors.

Learn about our new NSF-funded initiative

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We are currently building a team of Innovation Scouts (5 - 10 hrs/week at $20/hr) with expertise in one or more of the following areas: materials science, chemistry, chemical engineering, biology, biological engineering, crop science, food science, agriculture, and related fields. Your primary focus will be identifying universities scientists, engineers and early-stage startups capable of addressing the technology needs of our corporate sponsors. Work can be done remotely and on your own schedule. Fellowship lasts ~16 weeks with potential for extension into a part-time or full-time role.

Who you are:

• You are a PhD graduate student or Postdoc in materials science, chemistry, chemical engineering, biology, biomedical engineering, crop science or related fields

• You are a resourceful and creative problem-solver with a can-do attitude

• You are excited to be part of an early-stage social impact startup that can help advance science and positively impact the world

• You can communicate complex scientific concepts to non-technical audiences 

• You have an interest in learning about academic/industry collaboration and getting exposure to large corporate R&D practices

• Bonus points for prior experience in applied research and/or tech scouting 

• More bonus points for prior experience conducting industry-sponsored research

What you'll do:

• You will devise a simple technology landscape and plan of attack for canvasing scientific journals, technologies and startups capable of addressing the technology challenges of our corporate sponsors. See some examples here. 

• You will conduct independent, self-directed research using popular publication, grant and patent databases (PubMed, SBIR/STTR, NSF, Google Scholar, Google Patents, etc.) and tech scouting tools (Semantic Search, Clarivate, CB Insights, Pitchbook, etc.) 

• You will dream up and test other clever (possibly genius) approaches for sourcing partners and potential solutions outside the more old-school, traditional tactics.