Research Data Pipelines & AI Tools Assistant

Penn State; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 14,184,000 - 20,201,000; Part time

Job summary

Penn State University Park is seeking a part-time Research Assistant to support a faculty-led data project in the Smeal College. The role involves building an automated publication pipeline, testing search/discovery tools, and assisting with translation features for faculty and centers.

The position requires strong Python skills, API experience, and data handling capabilities. The successful candidate will work up to 15 hours per week during the academic semester, starting in October 2026.

Qualifications

• Currently enrolled Penn State student.
• Strong Python skills, including maintainable scripts and API work.
• Experience collecting and cleaning data programmatically (e.g., scraping, publisher APIs).
• Familiarity with LLM APIs and prompt design.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain an automated pipeline that collects Smeal faculty publications and working papers.
• Develop and test search and discovery tools over the repository.
• Support development of synthesis and translation features for faculty, research centers, marketing, and development.
• Test the system with a pilot collection and scale to the full collection.

Skills

Python

APIs

Data collection

LLM APIs

Embeddings

Git

Testing

Documentation

Tools

Crossref

Semantic Scholar API

SSRN API

GitHub

Streamlit

Flask

Job description

Penn State University Park is seeking a part-time Research Assistant to support a faculty-led data project in the Smeal College. The role involves building an automated publication pipeline, testing search/discovery tools, and assisting with translation features for faculty and centers.

The position requires strong Python skills, API experience, and data handling capabilities. The successful candidate will work up to 15 hours per week during the academic semester, starting in October 2026.