Applied Data Scientist

At PNNL, our core capabilities are divided among major departments that we refer to as Directorates within the Lab, focused on a specific area of scientific research or other function, with its own leadership team and dedicated budget.

At PNNL, our core capabilities are divided among major departments that we refer to as Directorates within the Lab, focused on a specific area of scientific research or other function, with its own leadership team and dedicated budget.

Our Science & Technology directorates include National Security, Integrated Discovery Sciences, and Energy and Environment. In addition, we have an Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a Department of Energy, Office of Science user facility housed on the PNNL campus.

The National Security Directorate (NSD) drives science-based, mission-focused solutions to take on complex,real-world threats to our nation and the world.

The Emerging Threats and Technologies Division, part of the National Security Directorate, consists of over 400 scientists, engineers, and analysts with backgrounds in cyber, nuclear, intelligence, policy, data science, and other fields. We work in interdisciplinary project teams to provide innovative concepts that integrate policy, analytics, science, and technology into unique solutions.

ETT delivers threat-informed approaches to research and development (R&D) and a culture of research to operations to harness the opportunities from emerging and disruptive technologies while at the same time countering the threats that arise from them. Our teams address complex national security problems by applying cutting-edge data science and leverage PNNL's broad research capabilities to generate insight on emerging threats and technologies.

We are seeking a Data Scientist with expertise in AI and a passion for solving mission-critical challenges to join our team. They will be a key member of an interdisciplinary team, focused on delivering data-driven solutions that address critical national security challenges within the nuclear nonproliferation, policy, and emerging technology domains. This individual will collaborate with peers to apply AI and machine learning models, analyze datasets, work with domain experts for applied use alignment, and perform research that bridges cutting-edge methods and field-ready solutions.

The candidate will support PNNL's mission by contributing to impactful R&D projects that help tackle national challenges.

Successful candidates will have the opportunity to grow professionally while working on diverse, mission-focused projects. At PNNL, we foster a collaborative and innovative work environment aimed at lifelong learning, creative problem-solving, and advancing interdisciplinary, data-driven innovation.

Responsibilities Include

• Design and implement AI/data science solutions to address complex national security problems, with a focus on nuclear nonproliferation, strategic policy analysis, and emerging/disruptive technology assessment.
• Design and implement AI/data science solutions to address complex technical challenges, including all-source analysis, object detection, data fusion, and end-to-end data science workflows.
• Design, develop, and implement methods, processes, and systems to analyze diverse datasets, including approaches that traverse and integrate modalities.
• Demonstrate ability to transfer skills across application domains with a deployment-focused approach, specifically in support of non-proliferation mission.
• Develop and evaluate predictive models and advanced algorithms to extract actionable value from structured and unstructured data.
• Identify and assess domain-relevant data resources; translate findings into actionable technical approaches and mission-relevant capabilities.
• Apply machine learning, data modeling, and software engineering to integrate and clean data, quantify uncertainty, identify patterns, and generate insights from high-dimensional datasets.
• Understanding how to traverse the nexus of policy, data science, and software engineering to develop data science solutions against real-world constraints.
• Deliver solutions driven by exploratory data analysis and rapid prototyping, with a focus on transition to operational use.
• Build and maintain external partnerships that strengthen the team’s technical reputation and align outcomes with sponsor priorities.
• Serve as a principal investigator (PI) or co-PI on projects and tasks that integrate multiple capabilities and/or…