Research Scientist / Engineer, Biological Models in London

The AI Security Institute is the world's largest and best-funded team dedicated to understanding advanced AI risks and translating that knowledge into action. We work with frontier developers and governments globally. Our Chem Bio (CB) team conducts technical research to assess evolving AI capabilities related to science R&D and CB misuse, and the effectiveness of technical safeguards that might mitigate risks arising from those capabilities.

Role Responsibilities:

• Join a small, talent-driven, multidisciplinary team evaluating state-of-the-art AI models for engineering biology.
• Setup and deploy leading biological models and evaluate these models in line with AISI's research objectives.
• Design and deliver evaluations and experiments to assess capabilities of AI models in fields such as protein design, structure prediction and biological foundation models.
• Lead on research projects to understand the feasibility and effectiveness of potential technical safeguards for biological models.
• Investigate critical research questions at the intersection of AI and biosecurity, contributing to a technical evidence base used to advise and inform wider cross-Government efforts in this space.

Requirements:

• Background in machine learning, having worked directly on training, tuning or evaluating machine learning models using PyTorch or similar.
• Experience working on leading biological AI models, such as protein design models, structure prediction or scientific foundation models.
• Experience writing production-level Python code that is scalable, robust and easy to maintain, ideally in a team.
• Sufficient knowledge of biology and machine learning concepts to understand and stay across the frontier of AI x Bio research literature.
• A sense of mission, urgency, and responsibility for success; demonstrated ability to solve challenging problems, implement solutions efficiently and acquire any missing knowledge necessary to get the job done.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to work effectively in a dynamic, multidisciplinary team environment.

Please note that this is a reserved post. We can only consider applications from UK nationals (including dual nationals who hold British citizenship). Appointment is conditional on successfully completing UK Government SC clearance. Employment is conditional on obtaining and maintaining the required clearance(s).

Other core requirements:

• You should be able to spend at least 9 days per fortnight working with us.
• You should be willing to work from our office in London (Whitehall) at least 3 days/week.
• You should be UK-based.

What We Offer:

• Impact you couldn't have anywhere else.
• Incredibly talented, mission-driven and supportive colleagues.
• Direct influence on how frontier AI is governed and deployed globally.
• Opportunity to shape the first & best-resourced public-interest research team focused on AI security.
• Resources & access to pre-release access to multiple frontier models and ample compute.
• Extensive operational support so you can focus on research and ship quickly.
• 5 days off learning and development, annual stipends for learning and development and funding for conferences and external collaborations.
• At least 25 days' annual leave, 8 public holidays, extra team-wide breaks and 3 days off for volunteering.
• Generous paid parental leave (36 weeks of UK statutory leave shared between parents + 3 extra paid weeks + option for additional unpaid time).
• On top of your salary, we contribute 28.97% of your base salary to your pension.