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. Demonstrated commitment to working safely, acting ethically, and taking personal accountability for operational excellence. 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…