Remote hybrid: Persons in these roles are expected to spend part of their time on-site in our Seattle offices but may occasionally work remotely. On-site requirements vary based on position and team.

Compensation Range: $91,310 - $129,660

Semantic Scholar Research at the Allen Institute for AI (AI2) is an interdisciplinary research team focused on AI, HCI, ML, NLP, accessibility, and computational social science in support of Semantic Scholar's mission of accelerating science. Semantic Scholar is an open platform that helps millions of scholars discover, understand, and synthesize scholarly papers, powered by a large-scale literature graph with 200M+ papers. Our research impacts the Semantic Scholar platform and the research community more broadly, and we regularly publish in high-profile conferences and journals in NLP (e.g., ACL, EMNLP), HCI (e.g., CHI, UIST, CSCW), ML (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR), IR (e.g., SIGIR), Accessibility (ASSETS), and other areas.

AI2 is seeking a Predoctoral Young Investigator (PYI) to join our Semantic Scholar Research team.

The PYI program offers predoctoral candidates the opportunity to prepare for graduate-level research through partnership with strong mentors from the Research team, participation in cutting edge research, and co-authorship of papers at top venues. This program aims to position candidates for successful entry into a top graduate program. For potential candidates who are already enrolled in graduate studies, the PYI program offers the opportunity to work with researchers at AI2 on collaborative projects for the benefit of both AI2's initiatives and your thesis work. For potential candidates who are choosing between entering a PhD program or seeking employment in industry, the PYI program can provide valuable exposure to graduate-level research and help inform your career decisions.

PYIs on our team have the opportunity to:

• Define and lead ambitious, high-impact research projects,
• Collaborate with and learn from team members across AI2, including scientists and engineers,
• Author scientific papers for publication in high-profile conferences or journals,
• Implement and share open source software to improve access to our research,
• Contribute to the Semantic Scholar project through new models or software systems.
• Learn about and leverage Semantic Scholar & AI2 data, engineering infrastructure, and research tools,
• Gain experience in a supportive and fast-paced industry research environment

At AI2, we value the importance of taking the next step in your research career - getting your PhD. When visiting schools to decide on your PhD program, you will not be required to use your accrued Vacation and Personal Time to travel and/or conduct school visits.

We've received many applications for start dates in 2023 and are currently reviewing. Please check in Fall 2023 for start dates in 2024. If you have questions about the hiring process or timeline, please consult our team hiring FAQs or reach out to s2-research-careers@allenai.org with further questions.

What you'll need:

• Bachelor's or master's degree, or expected to graduate with one before the start of the PYI program.
• Interest in entering a PhD program in Computer Science or related field in the next 1-3 years. We accept applications from candidates who have yet to apply to PhD programs, as well as candidates who are already accepted into a PhD program.
• Excited about conducting graduate-level research in natural language processing, human-computer interaction, language and vision, machine learning, information retrieval, knowledge representation, data science, or other related fields. We do not require prior experience in these areas, but successful PYI candidates are those who have been able to articulate why they're interested in pursuing research in these areas & why they're uniquely qualified to do so.
• Strong software engineering skills.

Bonus qualifications:

• Preprints or publications on AI-related topics at AI or HCI venues.
• Experience with deep learning frameworks (e.g. PyTorch, Tensorflow).
• Contributions to open-source research libraries (e.g. AllenNLP, spaCy).
• Familiarity with building web interfaces. Understanding how to turn an idea into a working, browser-based interface is a plus.
• Experience conducting user studies.

Why Semantic Scholar?

As a Predoctoral Young Investigator on our team, you'll have the unique opportunity to see your research improve the productivity and discovery experience of millions of scholars who use Semantic Scholar (semanticscholar.org).

We collaborate frequently with researchers on other AI2 teams focused on natural language processing and computer vision, among others. Our main office has close ties and unique access to researchers at the University of Washington, only 1.5 miles away. Researchers excited about such internal and external collaborations are encouraged to apply.

See our team page (https://www.semanticscholar.org/research/publications) for examples of our work.

Who We Are:

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence is a non-profit research institute in Seattle founded by Paul Allen and headed by Professor Oren Etzioni. The core mission of AI2 is to contribute to humanity through high-impact research in artificial intelligence.

In addition to AI2's core mission, we also aim to contribute to humanity through our treatment of each member of the AI2 Team. Some highlights are:

• We are a learning organization – because everything AI2 does is ground-breaking, we are learning every day. Similarly, through weekly AI2 Academy lectures, a wide variety of world-class AI experts as guest speakers, and our commitment to your personal on-going education, AI2 is place where you will have opportunities to continue learning alongside your coworkers.
• We value diversity - We seek to hire, support, and promote people from all genders, ethnicities, and all levels of experience regardless of age. We particularly encourage applications from women, non-binary individuals, people of color, members of the LGBTQA+ community, and people with disabilities of any kind.
• We value inclusion - We understand the value that people's individual experiences and perspectives can bring to an organization, and we are building a culture in which all voices are heard, respected and considered.
• We emphasize a healthy work/life balance – we believe our team members are happiest and most productive when their work/life balance is optimized. While we value powerful research results which drive our mission forward, we also value dinner with family, weekend time, and vacation time. We offer generous paid vacation and sick leave as well as family leave.
• We are collaborative and transparent – we consider ourselves a team, all moving with a common purpose. We are quick to cheer our successes, and even quicker to share and jointly problem solve our failures.
• We are in Seattle – and our office is on the water! We have mountains, we have lakes, we have four seasons, we bike to work, we have a vibrant theater scene, and we have so much else. We even have kayaks for you to paddle right outside our front door. We welcome interest from applicants from outside of the United States.
• We are friendly– chances are you will like every one of the 100+ (and growing) people who work here. We do.

AI2 is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. You may view the related Know Your Rights compliance poster and the Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision by clicking on their corresponding links.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to employees and applicants with disabilities to the full extent required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you feel you need a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA, you are encouraged to contact us at recruiting@allenai.org

Benefits:

• Team members and their families are covered by medical, dental, vision, and an employee assistance program.
• Team members are able to enroll in our health savings account plan, our healthcare reimbursement arrangement plan, and our health care and dependent care flexible spending account plans.
• Team members are able to enroll in our company's 401k plan.
• Team members will receive $125 per month to assist with commuting or internet expenses and are eligible to receive up to $150 reimbursement for health and wellbeing expenses per month.
• Team members will also receive up to ten sick days per year, up to seven personal days per year, up to 20 vacation days per year and twelve paid holidays throughout the calendar year.