Postdoctoral Research Associate - AI-driven Lab Automation for Life Sciences

Brookhaven National Laboratory’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) seeks a Postdoctoral Research Associate for AI-driven Lab Automation for Life Sciences for an on-site position in the Biological, Environmental and Planetary Science Division.

The aim of the position is to advance the frontiers of structural biology by developing AI-driven methods for improving crystal quality at scale. This role will enable new discoveries in life sciences and bio-technology relying on structural biology methods.

The ideal candidate would have a background and an interest in Biophysics, Biochemistry, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Join a team of scientists at the leading macromolecular crystallography beamlines, the crystallization laboratory, the computing center and contribute to science projects at the interface between AI method development and large-scale research facilities.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Develop and implement AI-enabled laboratory-workflows for automated crystallization screening, optimization, and characterization integrating imaging, experimental metadata, and diffraction outcomes.

• Design and deploy computer vision methods to detect and track crystal growth.

• Develop closed-loop optimization approaches to recommend crystallization conditions and harvesting strategies based on experimental feedback.

• Develop, train and integrate AI/ML models with laboratory automation systems, including crystallization robotics, liquid handlers, and imaging platforms.

• Build scalable data pipelines linking experimental metadata, imaging data, and diffraction results for high-throughput analysis.

• Evaluate model performance using experimental metrics and support deployment into user-facing workflows.

• Collaborate with synchrotron beamline scientists and laboratory and crystallization staff.

• Document methods and results, contribute to manuscripts and reports, and present the work at conferences.

• Participate in interdisciplinary team science.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Ph.D. in computer science, bioinformatics, biophysics, applied mathematics, or related field.

• Expertise in machine learning, computer vision, or image analysis.

• Experience with data management and databases.

• Experience working with Python, scientific software development, version control and collaborative code development, such as Git

• Ability to work in interdisciplinary teams.

• Strong publication record.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Experience with machine learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, etc.) and integrating ML in a research lab facility.

• Familiarity with lab automation or robotics.

• Experience with black-box optimization, including active learning or Bayesian optimization.

• Experience with imaging, time-series or high-dimensional data.

• Exposure to crystallography or structural biology.

• Experience with multimodal datasets and developing reproducible workflows.

• Familiarity with experiment tracking and metadata capture.

Additional Information:

• This position is a 2-year term, with the possibility of renewal contingent on performance and funding availability
• Brookhaven Laboratory is committed to providing fair, equitable and competitive compensation. The full salary range for this position is $ $71,900-$119,000 / year. You will be placed at the level and salary commensurate with your experience. Salary offers will be commensurate with the final candidate’s qualification, education and experience and considered with the internal peer group
• Candidates must have completed all degree requirements by the commencement of employment
• BNL policy requires that after obtaining a PhD, eligible candidates for research associate appointments may not exceed a combined total of 5 years of relevant work experience as a post-doc and/or in an R&D position, excluding time associated with family planning, military service, illness or other life-changing events

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Brookhaven National Laboratory (www.bnl.gov) delivers discovery science and transformative technology to power and secure the nation’s future. Brookhaven Lab is a multidisciplinary laboratory with seven Nobel Prize-winning discoveries, 37 R&D 100 Awards, and more than 70 years of pioneering research. The Lab is primarily supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science. Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA) operates and manages the Laboratory for DOE. BSA is a partnership between Battelle and The Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University. BSA salutes our veterans and active military members with careers that leverage the skills and unique experience they gained while serving our country, learn more at BNL | Opportunities for Veterans at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

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