Post-Doc Research Associate - AI for Credible Climate Mitigation

UNC-Chapel Hill • Chapel Hill, NC

71d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Data-Driven EnviroLab (DDL) at UNC-Chapel Hill seeks a Postdoctoral Research Associate to join CLAIM: the Center for Climate Leadership and AI-driven Integrity in Mitigation. CLAIM advances the credible use of artificial intelligence, especially generative AI and large language models (LLMs), to accelerate climate mitigation while safeguarding integrity in climate commitments. We are looking for a researcher whose agenda sits at the intersection of AI and climate action, with a particular focus on subnational governments and non-state actors (e.g., cities, regions, companies, investors, civil society). The ideal candidate will research how to use LLMs as tools for mitigation strategy and accountability and scrutinize them as systems that can reproduce bias, misinformation, or greenwashing unless carefully benchmarked. Working with an interdisciplinary team spanning computer science, climate policy, law, and social science, the Postdoctoral Research Associate will contribute to data collection, methodological innovation, open tools, papers, and policy-facing outputs that improve climate commitment integrity. This position may be eligible for a hybrid work arrangement. UNC Chapel Hill employees are generally required to reside within a reasonable commuting distance of their assigned duty station.

Requirements

• PhD in Computer Science, Computing, Statistics or Data Science, or related disciplines
• Demonstrated hands-on experience training, fine-tuning, or adapting LLMs / generative AI models (e.g., instruction tuning, domain adaptation, RAG pipelines), with evidence in publications, open-source code, or deployed tools.
• Strong experience in LLM /genAI evaluation and benchmarking, including methods for factuality/hallucination testing, robustness, calibration, bias/fairness, and/or adversarial stress-testing.
• Solid programming and ML/NLP engineering skills in Python and ideally modern deep-learning stacks (e.g., PyTorch/JAX, HuggingFace/Transformers, vector databases, agentic/RAG tooling), with ability to build reproducible research pipelines.
• Working knowledge of climate change mitigation and environmental governance, including familiarity with climate commitments, emissions accounting, or policy/action tracking, and motivation to apply AI in this space.
• Able to think critically, proactively and work both independently and in an interdisciplinary team environment.

Nice To Haves

• Excellent organization and time management skills.

Responsibilities

• Develop, adapt, and evaluate LLM/genAI systems for climate mitigation intelligence, especially for tracking and assessing commitments and actions by cities, regions, and non-state actors.
• Design and validate benchmarks, metrics, and auditing pipelines that test the accuracy, credibility, fairness, and robustness of LLM outputs related to climate targets, disclosures, and policy claims.
• Rigorously test genAI/ML models against misinformation, disinformation, and greenwashing, including stress-testing models under adversarial, low-resource, and multilingual settings.
• Study how generative AI shapes real-world climate behavior, including impacts on corporate and subnational mitigation planning, transparency, and accountability.
• Contribute to CLAIM’s broader mission: data collection, methodological innovation, open tools, papers, and policy-facing outputs that improve climate commitment integrity.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree