Postdoctoral Research Associate - AI-driven Lab Automation Life Sciences

Position Overview

Brookhaven National Laboratory’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) seeks a Postdoctoral Research Associate for AI‑driven Lab Automation for Life Sciences for an on‑site position in the Biological, Environmental and Planetary Science Division. This role will advance structural biology by developing AI‑driven methods to improve crystal quality at scale, enabling new discoveries in life sciences and biotechnology.

• Develop and implement AI‑enabled laboratory workflows for automated crystallization screening, optimization, and characterization that integrate imaging, experimental metadata, and diffraction outcomes.
• Design and deploy computer‑vision methods to detect and track crystal growth.
• Develop closed‑loop optimization approaches that recommend crystallization conditions and harvesting strategies based on experimental feedback.
• Develop, train, and integrate AI/ML models with laboratory automation systems, including crystallization robotics, liquid handlers, and imaging platforms.
• Build scalable data pipelines linking experimental metadata, imaging data, and diffraction results for high‑throughput analysis.
• Evaluate model performance using experimental metrics and support deployment into user‑facing workflows.
• Collaborate with synchrotron beamline scientists and laboratory and crystallization staff.
• Document methods and results, contribute to manuscripts and reports, and present the work at conferences.
• Participate in interdisciplinary team science.

• Ph.D. in computer science, bioinformatics, biophysics, applied mathematics, or a related field.
• Expertise in machine learning, computer vision, or image analysis.
• Experience with data management and databases.
• Experience working with Python and scientific software development, including version control and collaborative code development (e.g., Git).
• Ability to work in interdisciplinary teams.
• Strong publication record.

• Experience with machine‑learning frameworks (PyTorch, Tensor Flow, etc.) and integrating ML in a research lab facility.
• Familiarity with lab automation or robotics.
• Experience with black‑box optimization, including active learning or Bayesian optimization.
• Experience with imaging, time‑series or high‑dimensional data.
• Exposure to crystallography or structural biology.
• Experience with multimodal datasets and developing reproducible workflows.
• Familiarity with experiment tracking and metadata capture.

This position is a two-year term with the possibility of renewal contingent on performance and funding availability. Candidates must have completed all degree requirements by the commencement of employment. After obtaining a Ph.D., eligible candidates for research associate appointments may not exceed a combined total of five years of relevant post‑doctoral or R&D experience, excluding time associated with family planning, military service, illness or other life‑changing events.

The salary range is $71,900 to $119,000 per year, commensurate with experience. Brookhaven Laboratory offers a comprehensive employee benefits program.

Brookhaven Science Associates is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.