Translational Post Doctoral Researcher - Agentic AI Neurodegeneration

Job Overview

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine is seeking a Translational Post Doctoral Researcher — Agentic AI for Neurodegeneration for a 2-year fixed term position. This role can be located in Raritan, NJ;
Titusville, NJ;
Spring House, PA;
San Diego, CA; or Cambridge, MA. (No fully remote option.)

• Multi‑Modal Data Integration
  :
  Characterize and integrate biomedical data modalities—including digital pathology, neuroimaging, omics, and longitudinal clinical data—to develop specialized, domain‑specific models for neurodegeneration.
• Build and refine data‑engineering pipelines that harmonize heterogeneous modalities, reconciling differences in spatial resolution, temporal scale and dimensionality into unified analytical frameworks.
• Identify where cross‑modal integration produces genuine insight versus where it introduces noise or artifact, establishing ground truth for downstream AI evaluation.
• Agentic AI Evaluation
  :
  Critically assess AI‑driven literature synthesis and automated “third reviewer” capabilities for detecting methodological weaknesses, logical gaps and unsupported claims across data modalities.
• Establish standards for how agentic systems incorporate overlooked or contradictory evidence such as negative findings or failed clinical trials, and evaluate whether these integrations generate genuinely novel hypotheses.
• Design evaluation frameworks for agentic AI systems operating across neuroscience data modalities, assessing whether models can reason credibly across imaging, omics and clinical evidence.
• Develop benchmarks using synthetic and real‑world multi‑modal datasets that probe AI co‑scientist capabilities under realistic research conditions, testing for robustness, reproducibility and alignment with expert‑level biomedical reasoning.
• Serve as a neurodegeneration domain expert within the AI/ML team, ensuring that model outputs remain anchored to clinically relevant disease questions.
• Publish evaluation methodologies and findings in leading journals and conferences (e.g., AD/PD, AAIC, NeurIPS) and articulate emerging AI/ML approaches—causal reasoning, intent classification, agentic planning—to diverse audiences.
• Co‑author manuscripts, concept papers and translational strategy documents.

• Ph.D. (or M.D./Ph.D.) in neuroscience, neurobiology, computational neuroscience, biomedical informatics or a closely related field, completed within the last three years or to be completed within the next six months.
• Deep knowledge of neurodegenerative disease biology (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc.) including disease mechanisms, experimental models and translational challenges.
• Hands‑on experience working with at least two of the following data modalities in a research context: neuroimaging (PET, MRI), digital pathology, omics, longitudinal clinical data.
• Familiarity with large language model architectures and agentic AI frameworks (e.g., Lang Graph, DSPy or equivalent orchestration tools).
• Proficiency in Python and common machine‑learning/data‑engineering frameworks.
• Excellent scientific communication skills and comfort working across computational, translational and experimental teams.
• Self‑directed with the ability to work both independently and within a diverse, multi‑disciplinary team.

• Experience building data pipelines that integrate heterogeneous biomedical data types.
• Familiarity with evaluation or benchmarking methodologies for AI/ML systems.
• Experience with NLP techniques: named entity recognition, natural language inference, knowledge‑graph construction.
• Knowledge of graph data structures, graph analytics and graph platforms (Neo4j, Neptune).
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS and/or Azure) for scalable pipelines.

The anticipated base pay range for this position is $79,000–$127,650. The position is eligible for an annual performance bonus and is covered by the company’s performance‑based compensation program.

Benefits include: medical, dental, vision, life insurance, short‑term and long‑term disability, business accident insurance, group legal insurance; a consolidated retirement plan (pension and 401(k)); vacation (up to 120 hours per calendar year), sick time (up to 40 hours), holiday pay (including floating holidays up to 13 days), and work, personal and family time (up to 40 hours).

Johnson & Johnson is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by federal, state or local law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.