Computational Scientist AI

Special Instructions to Applicants

Applicants should attach a resume and cover letter in PDF format to the Supporting Documents section of the application.

Boasting a 300-acre tree-lined campus in Houston, Texas, Rice University is ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has a 6-to-1 undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio, and a residential college system, which supports students intellectually, emotionally and culturally through social events, intramural sports, student plays, lectures series, courses and student government. Developing close-knit, diverse college communities is a strong campus tradition, which is why Rice is highly ranked for best quality of life and best value among private universities.

Rice is also a wonderful place to work. Rice faculty, staff and students share values that are essential to our success as a healthy community. Those values guide our decisions and behaviors and shape Rice's culture. They come through in the way we treat each other and the welcome we extend to our visitors. These values can be recalled simply by our name -- RICE -- Responsibility, Integrity, Community and Excellence.

OIT provides excellent constituent service, acting as a strategic partner to advance Rice University's priorities and mission of "pathbreaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contribution to the betterment of our world". We fuel innovation at speed across the university by building a culture of trust, using an effective operating model, driving seamless experiences, and providing core IT capabilities.

OIT is service-oriented and team-enabling. We seek applicants who will contribute to our mission.

Trust Building and Stakeholder Engagement - Foster trust across the campus by being transparent, reliable, consistent, and solution-oriented in communication and execution. Ensure clear, consistent, and timely communication with all constituents, maintaining a service-oriented mindset and addressing challenges with integrity.

Collaboration and Cross-functional Commitment - Work effectively with colleagues across teams, departments, and roles to support shared goals and a positive work environment. Communicate clearly and professionally with team members throughout OIT and across the campus to ensure smooth coordination of tasks and projects. Build and maintain positive relationships with others by being approachable, reliable, and responsive. Proactively share relevant information and follow up to ensure alignment and efficiency in team efforts.

Agility and Responsiveness - Adapt quickly to evolving needs, technologies, and priorities, ensuring efficiency and relevance. Identify potential challenges in advance and take proactive steps to minimize disruption to end-users. Approach unexpected changes with a problem-solving mindset, balancing speed and thoughtful engagement. Prioritize user experience by delivering seamless, timely, and effective support and potential solutions. Maintain a culture of continuous learning, ask questions from a place of curiosity and possibility to enhance agility and service outcomes.

Operational Excellence and Continuous Improvement - Maintain a culture of continuous improvement in all IT operations to ensure efficient and effective service delivery. Regularly assess and optimize processes, systems, and technologies to enhance performance, scalability, and user satisfaction.

The Center for Research Computing (CRC), a division of the Office of Information Technology (OIT), is dedicated to delivering and supporting world-class research computing services for the Rice University community, in direct support of the University's Momentous strategic plan. The Center supports cutting-edge research across the physical and social sciences, medicine, engineering, and the humanities at Rice University.

We are seeking a computational scientist to assist researchers using our HPC systems, specifically to support the use of GPUs, AI software, and research computing workflows for optimal performance. This role aligns with the University's strategic goal of expanding AI capabilities.

This position supports advanced artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and deep learning (DL) research across a wide variety of academic disciplines. The person in this role will collaborate with faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students to develop and optimize GPU-based applications for generative AI, complex simulations, and digital twins on high-performance computing (HPC) systems. The role includes technical support, training, and strategic contributions to Rice University's institutional AI initiatives.

An ideal candidate for this position is a GPU-first AI/ML computational scientist with deep, hands-on experience optimizing and scaling CUDA and PyTorch/Tensor Flow workloads on HPC clusters (e.g., Slurm, containers), adept at building and tuning LLMs/generative…