Senior Research Scientist, AI/ML, Imaging

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg in 2015 to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education to addressing the needs of our local communities. Our mission is to build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future for everyone.

The Team

CZI and its Biohub Network supports the science and technology that will make it possible to help scientists cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of this century. While this may seem like an audacious goal, in the last 100 years, biomedical science has made tremendous strides in understanding biological systems, advancing human health, and treating disease. 

Achieving our mission will only be possible if scientists are able to better understand human biology. To that end, we have identified four grand challenges that will unlock the mysteries of the cell and how cells interact within systems — paving the way for new discoveries that will change medicine in the decades that follow:

• Building an AI-based virtual cell model to predict and understand cellular behavior
• Developing novel imaging technologies to map, measure and model complex biological systems  
• Creating new tools for sensing and directly measuring inflammation within tissues in real time.tissues to better understand inflammation, a key driver of many diseases
• Harnessing the immune system for early detection, prevention, and treatment of disease

Our work in science is focused on doing fundamental research to better understand human biology and building the tools and technology that move science forward to prevent disease and get to cures faster.. Join us in accelerating science.

The AI/ML team is funding and building one of the largest computing systems dedicated to nonprofit life sciences research in the world. This new effort will provide the scientific community with access to predictive models of healthy and diseased cells, which will lead to groundbreaking new discoveries that could help researchers cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of this century.

The Opportunity

As a Senior Research Scientist  on the AI/ML team, you will apply and optimize state-of-the-art models in artificial intelligence and machine learning to solve important problems in the biomedical sciences aligned with CZI’s mission. You will work on a team responsible for developing and deploying ML models that use data developed by CZI and research partners all for the purpose of contributing to greater understanding of human cell function.

What You'll Do

• Develop and apply state-of-the-art methods in artificial intelligence such as representation learning, time series modeling or physics-informed machine learning to solve important problems in biological imaging.
• Work with a diverse range of biological data types, including cell/tissue images, time-lapse microscopy, cryo-ET tomography, multi-omics data and more. 
• Implement scalable solutions with respect to complex problems/scientific questions on large-scale data sets, especially using machine learning approaches, predictive models, and statistical analysis, to advance understanding of cell dynamics, systems, and interactions.
• Work as part of a team to leverage large open-source biological datasets and large-scale compute to create models that transform our understanding of cells.
• Advance the community standards for dissemination, presentation, and evaluation of computational approaches to core scientific problems.
• Contribute to the scientific community through publishing papers, blog posts, open source code, and attending conferences in machine learning and the life sciences.

What You'll Bring

• Have a PhD or Masters in computer science (focus on machine learning and/or computer vision), physics or applied math, or a related field or equivalent industry experience and at least 5 years of experience developing and applying state-of-the-art AI/ML methods.
• Experience in modern computer vision methods such as vision transformers or diffusion models.
• Experience in developing and applying methods utilizing time series and longitudinal data, representation learning, geometric learning and GNNs or neural rendering.
• Proven expertise in machine learning, with hands-on experience designing and experimenting with deep learning architectures, analyzing data, and visualizing results.
• Hands-on experience with deep learning frameworks (e.g. PyTorch, JAX) and a solid understanding of neural network architectures for tasks like time series and/or generative modeling.
• Have a proven track record of research and innovation in machine learning, computer vision or computational biology, demonstrated through publications, conference presentations, or project outcomes with an ability to stay updated with the latest advancements in the field.
• Enjoy working in a highly interactive and cross-functional collaborative environment with a diverse team of colleagues and partners in leading-edge cell biology data-driven research.
• Have the ability to work independently and as part of a team, and have excellent communication and interpersonal skills.

Compensation

The Redwood City, CA base pay range for a new hire in this role is 214,000-294,800. New hires are typically hired into the lower portion of the range, enabling employee growth in the range over time. Actual placement in range is based on job-related skills and experience, as evaluated throughout the interview process. 

Better Together

As we grow, we’re excited to strengthen in-person connections and cultivate a collaborative, team-oriented environment. This role is a hybrid position requiring you to be onsite for at least 60% of the working month, approximately 3 days a week, with specific in-office days determined by the team’s manager. The exact schedule will be at the hiring manager's discretion and communicated during the interview process.

Benefits for the Whole You 

We’re thankful to have an incredible team behind our work. To honor their commitment, we offer a wide range of benefits to support the people who make all we do possible. 

• CZI provides a generous employer match on employee 401(k) contributions to support planning for the future.
• Annual benefit for employees that can be used most meaningfully for them and their families, such as housing, student loan repayment, childcare, commuter costs, or other life needs.
• CZI Life of Service Gifts are awarded to employees to “live the mission” and support the causes closest to them.
• Paid time off to volunteer at an organization of your choice. 
• Funding for select family-forming benefits. 
• Relocation support for employees who need assistance moving to the Bay Area
• And more!

If you’re interested in a role but your previous experience doesn’t perfectly align with each qualification in the job description, we still encourage you to apply as you may be the perfect fit for this or another role.

Explore our work modes, benefits, and interview process at www.chanzuckerberg.com/careers.

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