Research Specialist (RS1/RS2), Natural Language Processing - Brookhaven National Laboratory

The AI and Machine Learning Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) invites exceptional candidates to apply for a researcher position with a focus on national security applications of natural language processing (NLP). BNL is engaged in numerous research efforts that employ NLP techniques for science and security applications and uses these applications to inform new foundational ML and NLP innovations. This work involves the development and applications of encoding and generative NLP models (e.g. large language models, LLMs), and includes model training, tuning and adaptation, prompt engineering and benchmarking, pipeline and external resource integration (e.g. retrieval augmented generation, RAG), and in-depth ML/AI risk analysis.

The position combines data science with novel method development, and provides unique access to world-class computing resources, such as the BNL Institutional Cluster and DOE leadership computing facilities, as well as collaboration opportunities with domain scientists and security experts. Access to these platforms will allow computing at scale, and together with access to unique data sources, will ensure that the successful candidate has the necessary resources to solve challenging DOE problems of interest. The successful candidate will join a growing research group with diverse expertise and projects spanning the full breadth of BNL’s and the DOE’s missions.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Conduct research in ML and NLP for various problems relating to scientific discovery, workflow acceleration, and national security.
• Implement, adapt, and evaluate ML and NLP algorithms for scientific and security applications.
• Work in interdisciplinary teams with subject matter experts from various domain sciences and security backgrounds.
• Communicate research progress, challenges, and achievements, and engage within and beyond the department on new potential collaborations.

Position Requirements:

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Bachelor’s degree with 2 or more years of relevant work experience, or a Master's degree with 1 or more years of relevant work experience, or a PhD degree in computer science or a related field (e.g., engineering, applied mathematics, statistics).
• Good research experience and publication track record in ML and/or NLP fields.
• Excellent programming skills and computer science knowledge, familiarity with ML and NLP libraries.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Security clearance requirements: Must undergo and receive a favorable disposition in a preliminary background investigation (criminal, credit, prior employment, etc.); must be able to obtain and maintain a U.S. Department of Energy Q-level security clearance which requires that you: be a US citizen; have no felony convictions or other serious offenses; have an honorable discharge from military, and a good credit history.  Obtaining and maintaining a security clearance is a condition of employment.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Practical experience developing novel ML and NLP algorithms and models and applying such models to scientific or security problems.
• Experience working in multidisciplinary collaborations.
• Experience with large-scale ML/NLP model training (e.g. data, model, pipeline parallelism)
• Strong familiarity with software development tools, environments and best practices (e.g. containerization, source control, MLOps, etc).

Compensation:

• Brookhaven Laboratory is committed to providing fair, equitable and competitive compensation. This is a multi-level role and the full salary range for this position is $74750 - $155650 / year. You will be placed at the level and salary commensurate with your experience.  Salary offers will be commensurate with the final candidate’s qualification, education and experience and considered with the internal peer group.