Senior Data Scientist IV – Gen AI Development & Evaluation

Overview

At PNNL, our core capabilities are divided among major departments called directorates, each focused on a specific area of scientific research or other function, with its own leadership team and dedicated budget. The science & technology directorates include National Security, Earth and Biological Sciences, Physical and Computational Sciences, and Energy and Environment. The AI and Data Analytics Division, part of the National Security Directorate, integrates advanced hardware and software to deliver computational solutions that address complex data and analytic challenges.

Working in multidisciplinary teams, we connect foundational research to engineering and operations, providing tools to innovate quickly and field results faster.

The AI & Data Analytics division is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to blend foundational research with real‑world implementation on mission‑focused projects. Successful candidates will grow professionally while working on diverse, mission‑focused projects and will serve as a senior technical leader, driving proposal development and engaging directly with stakeholders. This role requires hands‑on experience with or leading research that leverages model internals, such as direct engagement with model architectures, training pipelines, and weight‑level optimization, or developing and deploying agentic AI solutions that use tool‑use, retrieval‑augmented generation, multi‑step reasoning, and autonomous decision‑making workflows.

• 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 (testing & evaluation, robustness) for key modalities such as hyperspectral imaging and geospatial applications.
• Drive breakthroughs in multi‑int fusion—integrating diverse intelligence sources to deliver robust, mission‑ready solutions that elevate operational capabilities.
• Advance knowledge discovery and decision intelligence, supporting robust analytical processes by extracting and integrating 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 models, 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, 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.

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

• Demonstrated proficiency in leading proposals, writing technical reports, and communicating complex findings to diverse audiences.
• Knowledge of compute environments and 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,…