Research Scientist

Arizona State University • Tempe, AZ

1d

About The Position

The Center on Information and Narrative Complexity (CINC) at Arizona State University seeks a Research Scientist for an interdisciplinary team. The position dedicates effort to a grant-funded research award at the intersection of computational methods, human belief dynamics, narrative analysis, and information environments. The successful candidate will collaborate with engineers, narrative theorists, social scientists, data scientists, and the sponsor to develop computational models, analytical frameworks, and software-enabled research capabilities supporting fundamental research and real-world applications.

The role offers opportunities to contribute to sponsored research, publish research, mentor students, collaborate with government and academic partners, and develop an independent research agenda through proposal development and leadership on future projects. This benefits-eligible, full-time, 12-month position has no tenure implications. The initial appointment is for one year and may be renewed depending on funding availability and satisfactory performance. The anticipated start date is October 2026.

Requirements

• Earned Ph.D. and at least 3 years of research experience by the time of appointment.
• Ability to work cooperatively or independently in conducting research, seeking outside funding, and supervising others in significant research projects.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with complex systems approaches and ability to work across disciplines.
• Familiarity with large language models (LLMs) or natural language processing (NLP) for social science applications beyond prompt engineering.
• Background in interdisciplinary and/or national security–adjacent research settings.
• Experience with or interest in grant writing and research program development.
• Python experience, including common NLP and machine learning libraries such as spaCy, Hugging Face, scikit-learn, and PyTorch.
• Experience running jobs on high-performance computing (HPC) clusters.
• Experience working with Google Cloud Platform.
• Experience building applications with large language model (LLM) APIs.
• Statistical analysis experience, including intercoder reliability and evaluation of classifier accuracy.
• Experience with DevOps and workflow automation.
• Knowledge of software engineering practices such as version control, testing, and code review.

Responsibilities

• Develop and analyze computational and social systems from behavioral, societal, and human-centered perspectives.
• Collaborate with software engineers and data scientists to operationalize social science theories and research outcomes.
• Design and develop scalable, reproducible model and data pipelines for research and experimentation.
• Work with faculty investigators to design, implement, evaluate, test, and document the research framework, and support user training.
• Assist with the development and long-term roadmap of the integrated system, overseeing design, implementation, evaluation, documentation, and testing.
• Support student coordination and provide guidance to ensure high-quality contributions and timely progress.
• Conduct research, seek outside funding, and supervise others in carrying out significant research projects.

What This Job Offers

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