Senior Research Scientist
Oak Ridge National Laboratory· Research· Oct 6, 2026 · 22d ago
Oak Ridge, TN, US, 37830
In office
Full-time
Senior
$140K–$198K est.
6+ years exp
Job description
Requisition Id 16413
Overview:
The Analytics and AI methods at Scale (AAIMS) group in the National Center for Computational Science (NCCS) is hiring Senior Research Scientist to push the frontier of AI for science such as: scientific reasoning, federated & collaborative learning, and reinforcement learning (RL) for self-improving models on leadership-class supercomputers. You’ll help design, train, and evaluate AI systems that plan, reason, and take actions to accelerate discovery across domains (materials, chemistry, climate, fusion, biology, and more).
NCCS operates the Frontier exascale supercomputer and world-class data facilities. This role sits at the intersection of AI at scale and HPC, giving you unmatched resources to prototype new ideas, run large ablations, and translate methods into scientific impact.
Examples of Focus Areas:
• Agentic AI for Science: Autonomous and tool-using agents for experiment design, simulation steering, data collection, and lab/compute orchestration; planning and memory; multi-agent collaboration.
• Scientific Reasoning: Program/path-of-thought, tool-augmented and retrieval-augmented reasoning; uncertainty quantification and calibrated decisions.
• RL & Self-Improving Models: RLHF/RLAIF, online RL, self-play, open-ended discovery, reward modeling, curriculum/active learning, data selection, iterative post-training, safety alignment and guardrails.
• Foundation Models for Science @ Scale: Pretraining, instruction tuning, continued pretraining, Mixture-of-Experts; distributed training/inference (FSDP, DeepSpeed, Megatron-LM, tensor/sequence parallelism); scalable evaluation pipelines for reasoning and agents.
• Federated & Collaborative Learning: Cross-silo training across institutions and facilities; privacy-preserving learning (secure aggregation, differential privacy, MPC/HE); personalization under heterogeneity; governance-aware data/model sharing; collaborative evaluation
The NCCS is the home of the world’s first exascale supercomputer Frontier. Our Leadership Computing Program (OLCF) provides world class computing facilities to applications across all computational domains and disciplines. We are an inclusive dynamic environment that welcomes those with initiative and creativity.
Major Duties and Responsibilities:
• Develop and coordinate division activities in HPC-AI with cross-cutting initiatives in the laboratory by establishing forward-looking centers of excellence.
• Lead and collaborate with internal and external researchers on a variety of extreme-scale AI/ML research and projects.
• Lead in authoring peer reviewed papers, technical papers, reports, and proposals. Advance personal and staff contributions in leading professional, academic, and research organizations.
• Advance personal and staff contributions in leading professional, academic, and research organizations.
• Team Building & Mentorship: Provide mentorship to postdocs, students, and junior staff, fostering long-term career development.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Effectively communicate vision, strategy, and progress to DOE sponsors, industrial partners, and international collaborators.
Basic Qualifications:
• PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a field closely related to the job duties of this position.
• A minimum of 6 years of relevant research experience outside of Ph.D.
• Demonstrated research in cross-cutting fields of HPC and/or AI.
Preferred Requirements:
• Demonstrated leadership in conceiving, planning, and delivering large-scale HPC-AI projects with measurable scientific or technological impact.
• Experience securing competitive funding (e.g., DOE, NSF, DARPA, industry consortia) and leading multi-institution proposals.
• Recognition by the broader community – invited talks, keynote addresses, professional society awards, or major benchmarks.
• Impactful open-source contributions to HPC or AI framework (e.g., Megatron-LM, DeepSpeed, Ray, Distributed RL)
• Interdisciplinary collaboration experience – working with domain scientist (climate, material, fusion, biology) to translate methods into real discoveries.
• Strategic vision – ability to identify long-term research directions at the intersection of AI, HPC and domain sciences.
Special Requirements:
Please submit two letters of reference when applying to this position. You may upload these directly to your application or have them sent to ORNLRecruiting@ornl.gov with the position title and number referenced in the subject line.
Instructions to upload documents to your candidate profile:
• Login to your account via jobs.ornl.gov
• View Profile
• Under the My Documents section, select Add a Document
About ORNL:
As a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science national laboratory, ORNL has an impressive 80-year legacy of addressing the nation’s most pressing challenges. Our team is made up of over 7,000 dedicated and innovative individuals! Our goal is to create an environment where a variety of perspectives and backgrounds are valued, ensuring ORNL is known as a top choice for employment. These principles are essential for supporting our broader mission to drive scientific breakthroughs and translate them into solutions for energy, environmental, and security challenges facing the nation.
ORNL offers competitive pay and benefits programs to attract and retain individuals who demonstrate exceptional work behaviors. The laboratory provides a range of employee benefits, including medical and retirement plans and flexible work hours, to support the well-being of you and your family. Employee amenities such as on-site fitness, banking, and cafeteria facilities are also available for added convenience.
Other benefits include the following: Prescription Drug Plan, Dental Plan, Vision Plan, 401(k) Retirement Plan, Contributory Pension Plan, Life Insurance, Disability Benefits, Generous Vacation and Holidays, Parental Leave, Legal Insurance with Identity Theft Protection, Employee Assistance Plan, Flexible Spending Accounts, Health Savings Accounts, Wellness Programs, Educational Assistance, Relocation Assistance, and Employee Discounts.
If you have difficulty using the online application system or need an accommodation to apply due to a disability, please email: ORNLRecruiting@ornl.gov .
This position will remain open for a minimum of 5 days after which it will close when a qualified candidate is identified and/or hired.
We accept Word (.doc, .docx), Adobe (unsecured .pdf), Rich Text Format (.rtf), and HTML (.htm, .html) up to 5MB in size. Resumes from third party vendors will not be accepted; these resumes will be deleted and the candidates submitted will not be considered for employment.
ORNL is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants, including individuals with disabilities and protected veterans, are encouraged to apply. UT-Battelle is an E-Verify employer.
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Benefits
Benefits detected in the listing.
Dental
Vision
401(K)
Parental Leave
Wellness