AI Research Assistant

University of Maryland; College Park (MD); On-site; USD 42,000 - 64,000; Full time

Job summary

University of Maryland's Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence & Security (ARLIS) seeks an AI Research Assistant to support the DE Bioeffects project. You will work with the AI/ML lead, attend meetings, and take technical notes while contributing to sensemaking tech for secure repositories.

The role emphasizes Python development, Linux fluency, model training/fine-tuning, and collaboration across a large interdisciplinary team, with potential security-clearance requirements.

Qualifications

• Currently enrolled in a Bachelor's, Master's, or Doctoral degree program in Computer Science, Data Science, Computational Linguistics/NLP, Information Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, or a closely related field.
• Hands-on experience building retrieval and language-model systems, including end-to-end implementations and model fine-tuning.
• Must be able to obtain a US security clearance and pass related investigations.
• Able to learn unfamiliar tools from documentation and example code, and to raise blockers promptly.

Responsibilities

• Attend project meetings at the request of the PI, co-PIs, and AI/ML lead and take technical notes.
• Help maintain collaborative workflows within a large interdisciplinary research team.
• Contribute to development of AI/ML-backed sensemaking technology for the repository.
• Communicate clearly in writing and help document technical approaches.

Skills

Python

Linux CLI

ML Toolkit

Learn new tools

Writing/Communication

Education

Currently enrolled in a degree program in CS/Data Science/NLP/INFO SCI/EE

Tools

PyTorch

Hugging Face Transformers

sentence-transformers

Git

Job description

Job Description Summary

Organization's Summary Statement:

The Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence & Security (ARLIS) at the University of Maryland is a University-Affiliated Research Center (UARC) dedicated to advancing research, innovation, and technology transition to improve decision making for U.S. national security. ARLIS combines deep scientific expertise with operational insight to address challenges in intelligence analysis, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence / machine learning, quantum science, and human-machine teaming. Researchers, scientists, engineers, and analysts at ARLIS collaborate with government agencies, industry partners, and academic institutions to deliver actionable insights and transformative solutions through research and development. Employees at ARLIS work on projects of critical importance, contribute directly to the nation's security, and are supported by a culture that values integrity, collaboration, and professional growth.

The AI Research Assistant will assist the AI/Machine Learning lead for DE Bioeffects project in their efforts to develop and refine the AI/ML backed sensemaking technology for the repository. They will attend project meetings at the request of the PI, co-PIs, and AI/ML lead, and may be asked to take technical notes during meetings. They will maintain a collaborative work style and help the AI/ML lead solve problems with the large interdisciplinary research team.

Physical Demands

Sedentary work performed in a normal office environment; exerts up to 10 pounds of force occasionally and/or negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects, including the human body. Ability to attend meetings both on and off campus. Spending long hours in front of a computer screen.

Licenses/ Certifications

N/A

Minimum Qualifications

Education

Currently enrolled in a Bachelor's, Master's, or Doctoral degree program at an accredited college or university in Computer Science, Data Science, Computational Linguistics/Natural Language Processing, Information Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, or a closely related field.

Experience

Demonstrated hands-on experience - through coursework, research, internship, or a personal project - building and evaluating retrieval and language-model systems, including at least one retrieval system built end to end and at least one model the candidate trained or fine-tuned themselves.

Must be able to obtain a US security clearance. If selected, must meet the requirements for access to classified information and will be subject to a government security clearance investigation that includes criminal and credit history checks, as well as verification of U.S. citizenship, birth, education, employment, and military history. Final offer is contingent upon the candidate's ability to successfully obtain the necessary interim Secret security clearance, as determined by ARLIS, prior to commencing employment.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Proficiency in Python, including the ability to write modular, re-runnable, and documented code.
• Working familiarity with the Linux command line and with version control using Git.
• Familiarity with at least one modern machine-learning or natural-language-processing toolkit - for example, PyTorch, Hugging Face Transformers, or sentence-transformers.
• Ability to learn unfamiliar tools independently from documentation and example code, and to raise blockers promptly rather than working around them silently.
• Ability to communicate clearly in writing, to work collaboratively as part of an interdisciplinary research team, and to use standard office productivity software.

Additional Job Details

Preferences

Education

Graduate-level study in Computer Science, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Information Science, or a related field.

Experience

• Domain adaptation of retrieval models - fine-tuning an embedder or reranker on in-domain data; continued pretraining on a domain corpus.
• Information extraction: NER, entity linking, relation extraction - including fine-tuning extraction models on a labeled gold set.
• Knowledge graphs: building a citation/affiliation/funding graph and querying it; traversal, community detection; Neo4j or NetworkX.
• GraphRAG, or a considered view on RAG vs. GraphRAG.
• NLI / entailment or groundedness scoring.
• Constrained or schema-guided decoding.
• Multi-GPU or distributed training; experiment tracking.
• Layout-aware PDF parsing and OCR.
• REST API development (FastAPI / Flask); DevOps, CI/CD.
• Comfort working independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced, evolving environment.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Active or eligible for a security clearance.

Best Consideration Date: N/A

Posting Close Date: N/A

Open Until Filled: Yes

Department

VPR-Applied Research Lab for Intelligence & Security

Worker Sub-Type

Staff