Carolina Population Center · 1 month ago
Post-Doc Research Associate - AI for Credible Climate Mitigation
North Carolina, US
Full-time, Contract
Hybrid
Mid, Senior Level
$68K/yr - $72K/yrUNC University Libraries is a leading institution in higher education and research, seeking a Postdoctoral Research Associate to join their Data-Driven EnviroLab. The role focuses on utilizing AI to enhance climate mitigation strategies and ensure integrity in climate commitments.
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
Qualification
Required
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
Preferred
Excellent organization and time management skills
Benefits
Comprehensive medical and vision coverage
Paid leave
Benefits and services that support professional development and a healthy work/life balance
Company
Carolina Population Center
The Carolina Population Center (CPC) is a community of outstanding scholars and professionals associated to create new knowledge about population size, structure, and processes of change.
Founded in 1966
11-50 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Early StageCompany data provided by crunchbase