Senior/Principal Chemist, AI Safety & Risk Strategy

Lilasciences; Greater London; On-site; GBP 111,000 - 156,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits

Commuter benefits

Educational assistance

Lunch program

Job summary

Lila Sciences is building a scientific safety team to identify and mitigate risks from AI-enabled science while preserving discovery capabilities. The role focuses on mapping misuse risks, evaluating feasibility, and translating risk judgments into safe, policy-aligned boundaries.

Ideal candidates hold a PhD or equivalent in chemistry with experience in dual-use risk assessment and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Qualifications

• PhD (or equivalent) in synthetic chemistry or related field.
• Experience assessing chemical dual-use risks.
• Strong scientific judgment about feasibility and constraints.
• Ability to identify specialists and combine findings across disciplines.
• Clear scientific communication and collaborative skills.

Responsibilities

• Map chemical misuse risks across models and experiments.
• Assess how feasibility, complexity and expertise affect misuse.
• Distinguish capabilities, plausible future developments and weak hypotheses.
• Identify gaps and frame questions for consultants and specialists.
• Translate risk judgments into mitigation requirements.
• Partner with threat modelers and mitigation teams.

Skills

PhD in chemistry

Synthetic chemistry

Chemical risk assessment

Scientific judgment

Interdisciplinary collaboration

Scientific communication

Education

PhD in chemistry

Job description

Lila Sciences is building a scientific safety team to identify and mitigate risks from AI-enabled science while preserving discovery capabilities. The role focuses on mapping misuse risks, evaluating feasibility, and translating risk judgments into safe, policy-aligned boundaries.

Ideal candidates hold a PhD or equivalent in chemistry with experience in dual-use risk assessment and cross-disciplinary collaboration.