Research Scientist, AI and Systems Security - PhD New College Grad 2026

NVIDIA•Westford, MA

2d•$168,000 - $264,500

About The Position

NVIDIA is seeking a Research Scientist to advance security, safety, and privacy across three complementary research areas: security of AI models and systems; AI-enabled design and verification of secure computer systems; and AI for cybersecurity. The role focuses on building secure, safe, and private systems from first principles through co-design of hardware, software, AI models, algorithms, and operational controls, while balancing protection with performance, energy efficiency, and usability. The researcher will contribute to work spanning AI models, agents, data pipelines, runtimes, accelerated computing platforms, hardware and software systems, and cybersecurity. The role includes developing AI-enabled methods for secure system design and verification, as well as applying AI to vulnerability discovery, secure development, threat detection, incident analysis, and automated defense. The researcher will collaborate with research, product, engineering, hardware, and software teams, publish original work, and help translate research advances into practical systems and developer capabilities. Candidates need depth in at least one research area and interest in contributing across the broader agenda.

Requirements

Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, with a strong research background in security, AI/ML, computer architecture, operating systems, formal methods, programming languages and compilers, software systems, or a related area.
Record of research excellence demonstrated through publications, open-source systems, patents, technology transfer, or substantial research collaborations.
Deep expertise in at least one of the following: security of AI models and systems; AI-enabled design and verification of secure computer systems; or AI for cybersecurity.
Ability to connect expertise to challenges across the hardware/software stack.
Strong experimental research and prototyping skills, including building systems, defining threat models, designing meaningful evaluations, and analyzing security and performance tradeoffs.
Strong programming skills in C, C++, Python, and/or relevant systems and machine-learning frameworks.
Clear written and verbal communication skills.
Creative, collaborative, and self-directed approach to research, with interest in working across disciplines.

Responsibilities

Advance the security, safety, and privacy of AI models and systems throughout the lifecycle, including data collection, training, model and agent behavior, inference, deployment, and platform operations.
Develop AI-enabled methods to design, analyze, implement, and verify computer systems, including hardware architectures, system software, runtimes, compilers, and applications.
Evaluate security, safety, privacy, performance, and efficiency tradeoffs.
Develop AI-for-cybersecurity techniques for vulnerability discovery, secure code generation and review, threat detection, incident analysis, security validation, and automated defense.
Collaborate across hardware, software, research, and product teams.
Publish original research and help translate research advances into practical systems and developer capabilities.