Hybrid Marine AI Research Technician – ROV & Vision

Seattle Aquarium; Washington; Hybrid; USD 38,000 - 40,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical

Vision

Dental

HRA

Flexible spending accounts

Life insurance

Long-term disability

403b retirement with employer match

ORCA pass

Seattle Aquarium Family Plus

Paid time off

Job summary

The Seattle Aquarium is seeking an early-career Research Technician to support the Coastal Climate Resilience (CCR) program. You will collect subtidal imagery with ROVs, maintain sensors, and develop open-source software for ROV operations and AI-assisted analysis.

You’ll train ML models, process imagery, and collaborate with Tribal, state, federal, academic, and nonprofit partners. A bachelor’s degree in a related field and coding ability are required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent work/research experience in natural resources, biology, marine biology, environmental sciences, conservation, computer science, or related fields.
• Experience in collaborative research at academic, government, Tribal, or nonprofit institutions is preferred.
• Coursework or experience in computer vision, image processing, or object detection preferred but not required.

Responsibilities

• Assist CCR research program using ROVs to survey benthic communities in Elliott Bay and Salish Sea.
• Create/modify code in Python/R; use AI tools to analyze imagery and telemetry logs.
• Train ML algorithms using CoralNet-Toolbox/VIAME to extract benthic metrics from imagery.
• Support data management and contribute to publications and outreach.
• Engage with Tribal, state, federal, and academic partners to advance research and conservation—while maintaining safety.

Skills

Python

R

GitHub

Computer vision

Image processing

Machine learning

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

CoralNet-Toolbox

VIAME

Job description

The Seattle Aquarium is seeking an early-career Research Technician to support the Coastal Climate Resilience (CCR) program. You will collect subtidal imagery with ROVs, maintain sensors, and develop open-source software for ROV operations and AI-assisted analysis.

You’ll train ML models, process imagery, and collaborate with Tribal, state, federal, academic, and nonprofit partners. A bachelor’s degree in a related field and coding ability are required.