Senior Researcher, Civil Safety Sciences

Remote (United States)

Job Details

Location: United States

Workplace: Remote

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience: 5+ years of relevant research or applied experience

Core Areas: Scientific Research, AI Risk Assessment, Emerging Hazard Detection, Biosecurity, Resilience Engineering, Horizon Scanning, Scientific Metaresearch, Catastrophic Risk Analysis

Compensation: $155,000-$215,000 annually

Travel: Occasional travel, including visits to laboratories and research groups

About the Role

The Senior Researcher, Civil Safety Sciences position focuses on investigating emerging AI-enabled hazards, advancing scientific detection methods, and developing resilience strategies for catastrophic and civilization-scale risks. This role involves conducting independent research, evaluating novel threat classes, assessing defensive technologies, and developing evidence-based approaches to civil safety challenges where established scientific methods or historical data may be limited.

The position combines interdisciplinary scientific research, technical feasibility analysis, biosecurity, environmental risk assessment, and scientific coordination. Working under the direction of an Executive Director with substantial intellectual autonomy, the researcher will lead projects, investigate emerging technologies, develop analytical frameworks, and translate complex findings into actionable insights for policymakers, technical researchers, frontline responders, and other stakeholders.

What You'll Do

• Conduct structured horizon scanning to identify emerging AI-enabled hazard classes and develop rigorous research methodologies for threats without reliable historical data, established detection systems, or mature scientific communities.
• Investigate next-generation detection sciences, including dynamic and adaptive pathogen surveillance, biosurveillance, and open-ended detection approaches for emerging biological, environmental, and other hazard modalities.
• Perform technical feasibility analyses of deep resilience systems and critical lifeline capabilities designed to operate when conventional infrastructure, sunlight, or centralized coordination may be unavailable.
• Analyze biosphere-scale vulnerabilities associated with geoengineering, synthetic microbes used for terraforming or remediation, and nontraditional environmental toxicology arising from AI-enabled activities.
• Identify, evaluate, and selectively advance defensive, stabilizing, and transparency-enhancing technologies that could improve societal protection against emerging technological threats.
• Develop scientific metaresearch methodologies to improve how evidence is generated, synthesized, evaluated, and translated into decisions when conventional empirical feedback mechanisms are limited.
• Assess emerging technological risks using interdisciplinary scientific reasoning, adversarial analysis, and structured approaches to uncertainty and worst-case scenarios.
• Build scientific coordination capacity through research standards, scientific convenings, cross-border partnerships, and collaborative relationships among dispersed research communities.
• Develop practical decision-support approaches for frontline responders and community networks addressing emerging civil safety and resilience challenges.
• Co-author research grant applications and contribute to scientific proposals supporting research into catastrophic risk, hazard detection, and resilience technologies.
• Develop analytical tools, models, and risk visualization approaches that improve the interpretation and communication of complex catastrophic risk scenarios.
• Prepare research findings, technical analyses, and evidence-based recommendations for policymakers, scientific audiences, funders, and the general public.
• Collaborate across interdisciplinary research programs to integrate civil safety considerations into broader risk assessment, AI governance, and technical safety initiatives.
• Participate in occasional laboratory and research group visits for technical discussions, scientific collaboration, and demonstrations.

Qualifications

Required Experience

• At least 5 years of relevant scientific research or applied experience, including a demonstrated ability to manage independent research projects from initial problem formulation through final delivery.
• Strong publication record or an equivalent body of substantive research or technical work involving technological risk, resilience, detection science, or related scientific disciplines.
• Substantive experience or familiarity with adversarial environments and adversarial reasoning, including security studies, biosecurity, cybersecurity, defense analysis, red-teaming, safety engineering, dual-use technology assessment, or comparable approaches.
• Demonstrated ability to investigate emerging hazards where historical evidence, scientific consensus, or established detection methodologies are limited or unavailable.
• Experience communicating complex technical findings to policymakers, funders, researchers, and non-specialist audiences.

Required Skills

• Strong interdisciplinary scientific reasoning and systems thinking, with the ability to evaluate complex technological hazards across multiple natural science disciplines.
• Ability to conduct rigorous research and risk analysis under substantial uncertainty, limited empirical evidence, and rapidly evolving scientific conditions.
• Substantive understanding of modern AI capabilities and development trajectories, including their implications for emerging threats, defensive technologies, and scientific risk assessment.
• Knowledge of adversarial reasoning and worst-case risk dynamics, including the potential deliberate misuse of advanced technologies.
• Ability to identify high-impact scientific research questions, develop analytical approaches, and independently prioritize research activities under broad strategic direction.
• Excellent scientific writing, technical communication, and verbal presentation skills, including the ability to translate specialized research into accessible and actionable findings.
• Sound analytical judgment and the ability to integrate evidence from multiple scientific disciplines when established research frameworks are insufficient.

Education & Certifications

• Advanced degree in a hard-science or engineering discipline, with demonstrated breadth across multiple natural science fields.
• A PhD or more than one master's degree is preferred.
• Relevant academic disciplines include biosecurity, microbiology, ecology, environmental science, atmospheric science, agricultural and food systems science, chemistry, materials science, physics, public health, biomedical engineering, systems engineering, resilience engineering, security sciences, or related fields.

Preferred Qualifications

• Interdisciplinary academic credentials or research experience spanning two or more fields, including biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, computer science, ecology, or public health.
• Direct experience in biosurveillance, civil defense, emergency preparedness, food security, environmental monitoring, geoengineering analysis, biosafety, or critical infrastructure protection.
• Background in scientific metaresearch, evidence synthesis, horizon scanning, structured expert elicitation, or scientific foresight methodologies.
• Experience with research grant writing, science diplomacy, scientific standards development, or coordination of geographically dispersed research communities.
• Technical skills in analytical tool development, scientific modeling, dashboard development, risk visualization, or decision-support systems.
• Previous contributions to AI safety, AI governance, biosecurity policy, or related technological risk disciplines.
• Familiarity with cognitive and epistemic security, or experience supporting frontline responders, mutual aid networks, or community-level resilience initiatives.