Assistant Research Scientist; PREP

PREP Research Associate

This position is part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Professional Research Experience Program (PREP). The role supports scientific research in artificial intelligence communications solutions for first responders.

• Research and document public safety AI communications solutions and their training datasets.
• Evaluate and document available AI tools and applications that best suit public safety communications.
• Document AI dataset curation processes and determine optimal datasets and enhancement options.
• Investigate AI standards organizations and assess their applicability to public safety AI solutions – identify participation opportunities.
• Participate in public safety AI working groups, standards meetings, and collaborate with partners to gather information on use cases, challenges, and technological gaps.
• Evaluate future public safety AI use cases and the datasets that could train and test them; identify technology challenges and gaps to address.
• Assist in designing and hosting a Public Safety AI Workshop to gather feedback on future use cases and datasets.
• Inform a public safety AI enhancement roadmap.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, or related field.
• Experience with modern AI tools and platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure, MLFlow, SQL, Big Query, Snowflake).
• Knowledge of data structures, formats, and AI data curation processes.
• Experience identifying data needs for AI use cases and evaluating dataset quality and representativeness.
• Knowledge of software engineering for AI applications.
• Knowledge of mathematical probability, statistics, and optimization methods.
• Knowledge of machine learning (supervised, unsupervised, deep learning) and model evaluation.
• Knowledge of dataset biases and labeling issues.
• Knowledge of AI model building and translating operational needs into solvable AI problems.
• US citizenship preferred.

The salary range is based on Johns Hopkins University’s good faith assessment at the time of posting; the actual compensation will depend on factors such as location, skills, experience, and market conditions.

The Johns Hopkins University is committed to equal opportunity and does not discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, marital status, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics.