Senior Chemist: AI Safety Risk & Dual-Use Analysis

Lilasciences; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus potential

Equity

Job summary

Lila is building a high-agency AI safety team to map chemical risk across sciences and to safeguard AI-enabled chemistry. This chemist will connect deep chemistry expertise with dual-use risk assessment to explore how advances could enable harmful capabilities.

The role emphasizes identifying gaps, engaging consultants, and shaping mitigation strategies to preserve beneficial chemistry. You will translate scientific risk judgments into policy boundaries and work with threat modelers and

Qualifications

• PhD or comparable experience in synthetic chemistry.
• Experience assessing chemical dual-use risks.
• Strong scientific judgment about feasibility and constraints.
• Clear scientific communication and collaboration across disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Map chemical misuse risks across models and automation, linking advances to potential misuse.
• Assess how feasibility, complexity and expertise affect plausibility of misuse.
• Differentiate established capabilities from plausible future developments and update assessments.
• Identify gaps, frame questions for consultants, and integrate findings with the expert-program team.
• Translate risk judgments into dual-use policy boundaries and mitigation priorities.

Skills

PhD in chemistry

Risk assessment

Scientific judgment

Communication

Education

PhD in Chemistry

Job description

Lila is building a high-agency AI safety team to map chemical risk across sciences and to safeguard AI-enabled chemistry. This chemist will connect deep chemistry expertise with dual-use risk assessment to explore how advances could enable harmful capabilities.

The role emphasizes identifying gaps, engaging consultants, and shaping mitigation strategies to preserve beneficial chemistry. You will translate scientific risk judgments into policy boundaries and work with threat modelers and