Senior Malaria Researcher

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. Through years of deliberate groundwork, we’ve been growing our research capacity and scope in order to direct substantially more funding to the most impactful opportunities we can find.

Update: We will stop accepting new applications for this role on November 26, 2026.

The role

You will be joining a small grantmaking team to contribute to our ambitious research agenda on malaria. You’ll sift through the countless questions we could try to answer, and honing in on those that matter most. You’ll also communicate externally about your work and mentor and advise other researchers on the team.

You will shape a research agenda that brings rigor and creativity to the thorniest questions the GiveWell malaria team faces. Your work will combine empirical evidence review and critical synthesis, cost-effectiveness modeling, discussions with subject matter experts, understanding of the broader context, and your own judgment. In the course of your work, you might approach questions like these:

• How should GiveWell’s portfolio of investments change in response to new technologies and shifts in government or funder priorities?

• How does expanding the use of newly-developed insecticides in nets affect cost-effectiveness?

• What is the potential cost-effectiveness of novel interventions such as attractive toxic sugar baits at scale across contexts?

Team structure

Our research department has over 60 people, and is currently organized into seven teams:

• Five of the teams (Water, Livelihoods, Nutrition, Malaria, and Vaccines) focus on specific areas of grantmaking.

• The New Areas team focuses on interventions in domains that are new to GiveWell.

• The Cross-Cutting team focuses on methodological issues, research quality, and other big-picture concerns that cut across all of our research work.

• The Commons team provides generalized research support to each of the other teams, including landscaping research, vetting, and publishing.

Our malaria team has three subteams: two of them focus on grantmaking in vector control and chemoprevention, respectively, and the third is focused on cross-team research questions. You might sit on any of the three teams.

Team values

We think our research team has unique qualities:

• We care deeply and centrally about finding and sharing truth. Truth-seeking is one of our core values . We post our mistakes and we prize our team members who keep our culture of free-flowing feedback strong.

• We are independent. We focus 100% on finding the most cost-effective opportunities to save and improve lives. Our researchers assist in communicating our research findings to the public and our donors, and on occasion we provide tailored advice to ultra-high-net-worth donors who want to rely on our expertise to direct their giving—but we never ask our researchers to trade off against honesty, or to hide their real beliefs.

• We don’t waste time. Once it’s clear that a particular research question is unlikely to change our bottom-line funding recommendation, we drop it as quickly as possible. We encourage our research staff to constantly re-evaluate their portfolios and only work on the highest-priority questions.

• Lean research team = huge personal impact. In 2026, our research team of ~80 people is directing close to 1 billion dollars and we expect grantmaking dollars per research team member to increase in the future.

• We work well together. Our research team is lean because we’re able to attract top-tier people, all of whom complete skills-based assessments before joining our staff. We maintain a high-performing, collegial culture and pay our staff accordingly.

About you

We expect the Senior Malaria Researcher to have

• A quantitatively oriented advanced degree (e.g., in epidemiology, statistics, economics or related fields)

• Substantial professional experience in the malaria landscape (broadly defined). This could include experience in epidemiological or health economics modeling, and/or in program implementation or funding.

We expect that people with the soft qualities below will be the most successful and happy on our team. This isn’t a full list, but hopefully it conveys the gist of our team’s professional personality:

• GiveWell’s mission and methods are personally energizing—you like our approach to research and you find personal meaning in our story of impact.

• You’re abnormally curious—you ask lots of questions, and you’re willing to interrogate others’ work. Your curiosity also extends to your own work—you aren’t defensive when your research comes under scrutiny.

• You routinely think about and surface the value judgments, background knowledge, and strategic commitments that undergird your work. You understand the potential effects of mistaken mental models, so you strive to improve yours and your team’s.

• You dislike it when people express strong confidence in views that don’t seem to rely on commensurate evidence. You carefully and legibly communicate about your confidence levels.

• You appreciate the value of an excellent reputation and strong relationships. You can moderate your directness and intensity when you’re communicating with external folks.

• You love a gnarly problem . You figure out the most important questions to answer, go deep on the details where they matter (and move on where they don’t), and reassess your mental models based on what you’ve learned.

• You constantly assess whether you and the team are working on the most important things.

If you’re interested in working on GiveWell’s research team but don’t have malaria expertise, consider applying to our generalist Senior Researcher role.

The details

• Compensation: We set salaries using a location-based tier system. Our pay for this role:

• NYC or the San Francisco Bay Area: $308,000.

• All other U.S. locations: $280,000

• International: Similar to the “all other U.S. locations” salary, based on historical exchange rates and delivered in locally-denominated currency. We can share a precise figure upon request after the first work trial stage.

• Benefits: Our benefits include:

• Fully funded health, dental, vision, and life insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the US for you and any dependents)

• Four weeks of paid time off per year

• 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave

• Ergonomic home workstations or coworking space memberships

• Automatic contribution equal to 5% of your gross salary into your 403(b) retirement plan (for U.S. based staff)

• Countries we can hire from: GiveWell is a remote-first organization. However, for the time being, we can only hire within a select number of countries (US, UK, Canada, Switzerland, and Germany). To be considered for a role with GiveWell, you need to already be based in one of those countries or be willing to move to one of them. We expect to expand the list of locations where we can hire over the course of 2027, and our job descriptions always reflect the current status — so we'd encourage you to check back and apply again for a role you're eligible for.

• Visa sponsorship: The US is the only country where visa sponsorship is possible for a number of roles, and it's assessed on a case by case basis. For all other countries, you need to already have work authorization, we cannot sponsor visas.

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