Senior Data Scientist, Public Sector AI & Policy (1-Year)

SLAC; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 117,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Stanford RegLab at Stanford University seeks a Senior Data Scientist to advance AI applications for public sector policy. You will lead research projects, design AI models, and work with large legal, health, and satellite data sets while mentoring junior researchers and co-authoring papers.

The role emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration, ethics, and clear communication of complex results to technical and non-technical audiences.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a scientific or analytic field with 3+ years of relevant experience or equivalent.
• Strong programming skills in Python and writing maintainable code.
• Solid foundation in ML, NLP, and information retrieval applied to large datasets.
• Experience with data modeling and database systems (structured/unstructured).
• Experience building reliable, scalable data pipelines with data quality and validation.
• Understanding of web security best practices for backend systems and data handling.
• Excellent written and verbal communication for technical and non-technical audiences.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with interdisciplinary teams to identify high-impact applied data science opportunities in the public sector.
• Design and develop multiple AI/modeling projects using state-of-the-art methods.
• Work with large, diverse data sets (legal texts, health data, satellite imagery).
• Mentor and/or manage junior researchers and data scientists.
• Prepare and deliver reports, visualizations, and publications communicating findings.

Skills

Python

Machine learning

NLP

Data pipelines

Data modeling

Security best practices

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree (MS/PhD preferred) in a scientific or analytic field

Tools

SQL

Vector stores

Document stores

Job description

Stanford RegLab at Stanford University seeks a Senior Data Scientist to advance AI applications for public sector policy. You will lead research projects, design AI models, and work with large legal, health, and satellite data sets while mentoring junior researchers and co-authoring papers.

The role emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration, ethics, and clear communication of complex results to technical and non-technical audiences.