Responsibilities

The AI & Data Analytics division is seeking to hire a Senior Data Scientist. This role blends foundational research with real world implementation to address some of the most complex and consequential challenges at the intersection of artificial intelligence and national security. We support PNNL's mission by contributing to impactful, mission focused applied R&D projects that help tackle national challenges. Successful candidates will have the opportunity to grow professionally while working on diverse, mission-focused projects.

As a Senior Data Scientist, you will also serve as a senior technical leader leading mission-driven research, driving proposal development, and engaging directly with stakeholders. This role will require hands-on experience with or leading research leveraging model internals not just inference endpoints, such as direct engagement with model architectures, training pipelines, and weight-level optimization, or developing and deploying agentic AI solutions that leverage tool use, retrieval-augmented generation, multi-step reasoning, and autonomous decision-making workflows.

Work Location & Requirements

• Based in Richland, WA or Seattle, WA with onsite presence required
• Clearance required (see below for details
• Travel may be required for stakeholder engagement or project events

Key Responsibilities

• Lead innovative projects and programs developing and applying generative AI and foundation model development (pretraining, fine-tuning, agentic systems, and innovative training strategies) and evaluation (T&E, robustness) for key modalities such as:
  • Transform hyperspectral imaging (HSI) and geospatial applications by harnessing advanced AI techniques to extract actionable intelligence from complex, multi-layered data.
  • Drive breakthroughs in multi-int fusion-integrating diverse intelligence sources to deliver robust, mission-ready solutions that elevate operational capabilities and decision-making.
  • Advance knowledge discovery, support decision intelligence, and enable robust analytical processes. This includes leveraging advanced AI techniques to extract, synthesize, and integrate insights from unstructured, semi-structured, or large-scale text and documents.
• Engage with stakeholders to understand project requirements and translate them into actionable technical approaches aligned with sponsor goals.
• Direct the design, development, and iteration on foundation model, frontier AI research, and agentic AI systems that address complex, real-world problems-especially those involving diverse data modalities such as remote sensing imagery, sensor fusion, and text.
• Apply deep expertise in model internals (e.g., tokenization, attention mechanisms, weight adaptation, and loss optimization) to customize and improve model performance for domain-specific applications.
• Lead evaluation and verification of AI and agentic systems across multiple axes, including standard performance metrics, uncertainty quantification, generalization to out-of-distribution settings, and mission-specific assurance criteria.
• Lead proposal development and business development through proposals and/or briefing sponsors.
• Serve as a technical resource and mentor to junior to senior staff within the team, fostering a collaborative research environment and mission awareness.
• Maintain awareness of emerging trends in AI, AI security, and national security to shape future research directions and identify new opportunities for impact.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Demonstrated proficiency in leading proposals, writing technical reports, and communicating complex findings to diverse audiences (technical and executive).
• Knowledge of compute environments and their cybersecurity concerns; familiarity with secure ML ops, access control, and model/data governance.
• Demonstrated impact in Generative AI, Frontier AI, or foundation model research (e.g., peer reviewed publications, recognized awards, contributions to community standards).
• Deep knowledge of the current ML research landscape, especially AI safety, adversarial machine learning, xAI/interpretability, uncertainty quantification, and the science of deep learning.
• Hands on experience analyzing internal structures of deep learning models, particularly LLMs and large vision/multimodal models (tokenization, attention mechanisms, routing, weight adaptation, loss optimization) or modalities including hyperspectral imagery.
• Hands on experience with LLM/LVM/Foundation Model and Frontier AI evaluation, red teaming, uncertainty analysis, or safety control implementation.
• Experience designing and executing T&E campaigns for AI systems, including test planning, dataset curation, metrics, statistical analysis, and reproducibility.

Read more about AI and Data Analytics division: https://www.pnnl.gov/ai-and-data-analytics

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• BS/BA and 7+ years of relevant work experience -OR-
• MS/MA and 5+ years of relevant work experience -OR-
• PhD with 3+ years of relevant experience

Preferred Qualifications:

• Degree in computer science, statistics, mathematics, or related fields.
• Experience serving as PI, technical lead, or project manager for federally funded R&D projects, with publications, open source contributions, or deployable prototypes.
• Knowledge of compute environments and their cybersecurity concerns; familiarity with secure ML ops, access control, and model/data governance.
• Experience designing and executing T&E campaigns for AI systems, including test planning, dataset curation, metrics, statistical analysis, and reproducibility.
• Software engineering foundations: Python, ML frameworks (PyTorch/TensorFlow), experiment tracking, and data pipeline tooling.
• Familiarity with agentic AI safety (tool-use governance, retrieval hygiene, autonomous decision workflows) and evaluation of multi-step reasoning systems.
• Prior work in national security environments, with an understanding of mission needs and operational constraints.
• Active DOE Q or TS/SCI clearance.

Hazardous Working Conditions/Environment

Not applicable.

Additional Information

This position requires the ability to obtain and maintain a federal security clearance.

"Referral Eligible"

Rockstar Rewards

Employees and their families are offered medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, robust telehealth care options, several mental health benefits, free wellness coaching, health savings account, flexible spending accounts, basic life insurance, disability insurance*, employee assistance program, business travel insurance, tuition assis