Postdoctoral Researcher - Human-Agent Collaboration in Scientific Discovery

About the role

The Computational Sciences Center (CSC) at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to join their team in the emerging field of Human-Agent Collaboration for Scientific Discovery.

Responsibilities

• Independently lead an AI research project, under supervision of your research mentor and in collaboration with other project members, with the goal of submitting a manuscript at a top-tier venue at the end of the first year.
• Lead an effort to conduct interactive evaluations of the proposed research with human scientists through real-world studies.
• Develop, test, and push high-quality code from project work to the platform.
• Communicate research progress verbally and in writing through regular project updates.

Requirements

• Must be a recent PhD graduate within the last three years.
• Must meet educational requirements prior to employment start date.
• Experience using software frameworks and standards for designing and evaluating agentic AI systems (e.g., Docker, Model Context Protocol (MCP), AgentSkills, OpenHands).
• Familiarity with the fundamentals of large language models: architectures, training pipelines including post-training, data curation, and downstream deployment as agents.
• Experience applying machine learning to scientific discovery problems (e.g., materials discovery, bio, chemistry, physics, theorem proving, etc.).
• Strong communication skills and a proactive, question-driven approach to collaboration.

Qualifications

• Must have a strong technical background in applied mathematics and statistics pertinent to design of experiments for interactive evaluations.
• Strong software engineering skill set.

Skills

Research experience in human-computer interaction and/or human-AI teaming, track record of first-author publications in top-tier venues, demonstrated interest in using AI as a tool to solve scientific challenges.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Short-term disability insurance.
• Pension benefits.
• 403(b) Employee Savings Plan with employer match.
• Life and accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance.
• Personal time off (PTO) and sick leave.
• Paid holidays.
• Performance-, merit-, and achievement-based awards.

Pay

$76,600 - $126,400 annually

Schedule

Full-time, 40 hours per week