ADIA Lab - Senior Computational Scientist - Trustworthy AI

ADIA Lab, an independent research institution based in Abu Dhabi specializing in data science, artificial intelligence, and computational sciences, is seeking a Senior Computational Scientist with a focus on Trustworthy AI. This position plays a pivotal role in strengthening and expanding ADIA Lab’s Trustworthy AI research program, cultivating a globally recognized team of researchers, and leading strategic initiatives within ADIA Lab and the broader international AI research community. Our goal is to further develop the scientific foundations, methodologies, and tools required to ensure that AI systems are explainable, robust, transparent, auditable, safe, and reliable in real-world, high-stakes applications.

ADIA Lab is a global research center dedicated to advancing computational science, data science, and AI to address challenges in climate science, health sciences, the digital economy, and materials science. Located in Abu Dhabi, the Lab brings together leading researchers from around the world to build foundational knowledge, develop innovative computational methods, and enable breakthroughs that have global impact.

Requirements

• Expand and co-lead a world-class research program in Trustworthy AI within ADIA Lab, advancing the scientific foundations of reliable, transparent, and responsible AI systems.

• Drive cross-disciplinary research combining machine learning, statistics, causal inference, optimization, computational science, and domain expertise to address challenges in explainability, robustness, fairness, safety, governance, and accountability.

• Develop novel methodologies for understanding, auditing, evaluating, and validating AI systems, including large language models, foundation models, and emerging AI architectures.

• Conduct fundamental and applied research on AI interpretability, robustness to distribution shifts and adversarial attacks, uncertainty quantification, model monitoring, and trustworthy deployment in high-stakes environments.

• Build and coordinate a strong, collaborative research team and network, with an emphasis on scientific leadership, mentoring, and strategic partnership development.

• Collaborate with national and international research institutions, advocating a community science approach that contributes to advancements in Trustworthy AI.

• Build partnerships with universities, laboratories, industry, and government organizations to initiate joint programs, funding proposals, and collaborative platforms focused on AI safety, governance, and responsible innovation.

• Publish research results in leading scientific journals and conferences, contribute to white papers and policy-oriented reports, and represent ADIA Lab at major international scientific and industry events.

• Develop open-source software, benchmark datasets, evaluation frameworks, and reproducible methodologies that advance the Trustworthy AI ecosystem.

• Supervise and mentor junior scientists, postdoctoral fellows, and students, nurturing future leaders in AI research and innovation.

• Play a central role in shaping, growing, and coordinating the Trustworthy AI program as a core pillar within ADIA Lab’s mission, ensuring long-term sustainability, scientific excellence, and global visibility.

• Work closely with ADIA Lab Fellows and the Advisory Board to define the strategic direction of Trustworthy AI research and its application across ADIA Lab’s scientific domains
• PhD in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computational Science, or a related field.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct and coordinate research, preferably with more than 5 years of post-PhD experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proven record of leading a research group, major research initiative, or multidisciplinary project in AI, machine learning, or data science.

• Demonstrated expertise in one or more areas of Trustworthy AI, including explainability, interpretability, robustness, AI safety, fairness, causal inference, uncertainty quantification, model auditing, privacy, security, or AI governance.

• Experience evaluating and deploying machine learning systems in high-stakes domains such as healthcare, finance, climate science, cybersecurity, public policy, or critical infrastructure.

• Strong understanding of modern AI systems, including deep learning, foundation models, large language models, reinforcement learning, and agent-based AI systems.

• Experience developing open-source software, benchmark datasets, evaluation methodologies, or reproducible research frameworks.

• Familiarity with high-performance computing environments, large-scale AI training and inference systems, distributed computing, and cloud-based research platforms.

• Proficiency in programming languages and frameworks such as Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, R, or related tools, as well as Git, Linux, and scientific computing environments.

• Strong publication record in leading venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, KDD, AISTATS, JMLR, Nature Machine Intelligence, or equivalent.

• Excellent leadership, mentoring, communication, and collaboration skills.

• Experience engaging with policymakers, industry partners, standards organizations, or international research collaborations is highly desirable.

Benefits

Be part of ADIA Lab’s mission to advance computational and data sciences that address humanity’s most pressing challenges. As a Senior Computational Scientist in Trustworthy AI, you will have the opportunity to shape a globally recognized research program, build and lead a dynamic interdisciplinary team, and collaborate with an international network of researchers, innovators, and policymakers working to ensure that the next generation of AI systems is transparent, reliable, safe, and beneficial to society. From Abu Dhabi, you will help define the scientific foundations of trustworthy and responsible AI while contributing to applications that have meaningful impact across health, climate, the digital economy, and beyond.