Oak Ridge National Laboratory · 22 hours ago
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Agentic Workflows (
Oak Ridge, TN
Full-time
Onsite
New Grad, Entry LevelOak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is seeking a dynamic Research Associate to focus on innovations in AI-integrated workflow architectures. This position centers on advancing intelligent workflows that enable seamless processes in autonomous discovery and complex data integration using cutting-edge AI agents and toolkits.
Advanced MaterialsClean EnergyEnergyEnergy ManagementManufacturingNuclearRenewable Energy
Responsibilities
Research and prototype LLM-driven agents capable of autonomous and interactive decision-making, anomaly detection, and guided experimentation in distributed scientific workflows
Design scalable systems for multi-workflow provenance capture, enhancing traceability, reproducibility, and transparency while facilitating intelligent multi-agent orchestration
Collaborate with domain scientists, computer scientists, engineers, and facility operators to integrate AI seamlessly into experimental and computational pipelines
Demonstrate the effectiveness of dynamic workflows in representative use cases such as materials discovery, combustion chemistry, and additive manufacturing
Publish research findings in peer-reviewed journals, conferences (e.g., SC, NeurIPS, AAAI), and open-source repositories
Mentor graduate students and contribute technical expertise to team projects aligned with ORNL’s strategic scientific goals
Qualification
Required
Ph.D. in Computer Science, Data Science, Computational Science, or a relevant domain discipline (completed within the last 5 years or nearing completion)
Experience with scientific workflows, distributed systems, or AI agent development, particularly integrating LLMs or autonomous tools within complex pipelines
Proficiency in modern AI frameworks and tools (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, LangChain, MCP SDKs) and programming languages (Python, C++)
Experience with provenance systems (e.g., Flowcept, W3C PROV) and data streaming tools (Kafka, Redis, RabbitMQ)
Understanding of HPC workflow orchestration platforms such as Argo, CrewAI, Parsl, or RADICAL-Pilot
Preferred
Knowledge of tools such as Grafana, Polars, or Pandas for monitoring and analyzing large-scale workflow execution and provenance data
Familiarity with synthetic workflows, graph-based reasoning, or computational chemistry/molecular dynamics workflows
Expertise in AI techniques such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), schema-driven reasoning, and graph traversal in provenance
Background in developing scalable tools for cross-domain, edge-to-HPC workflows using distributed architectures
Proven ability to integrate dynamic schema design and metadata enrichment into AI workflow systems
Company
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory holds a range of R&D assignments, from fundamental nuclear physics to applied R&D on advanced energy systems.
Founded in 1943
5001-10000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Oak Ridge National Laboratory has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (268)
2024 (276)
2023 (223)
2022 (228)
2021 (192)
2020 (152)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
$9.8MKey Investors
US Department of Energy
2023-09-21Grant· $4.8M
2023-07-27Grant
2022-03-14Grant· $5M
Leadership Team
Arjun Shankar
Division Director, National Center for Computational Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Brett Ellis
Division Director - Research Computing Support
Recent News
2026-01-22
2026-01-17
2026-01-17
Company data provided by crunchbase