Senior / Principal Computational Biologist, AI Safety

The role

You will conduct original computational biology research for AI safety and build an integrated understanding of biological risks. This involves investigating how capabilities across LLMs, specialized biological models, agents, and automated laboratories change biological feasibility.

What you will do

• Formulate and pursue original computational biology research questions relevant to safety
• Build and update an integrated picture of risks across LLMs, biological models, agents and automated laboratories
• Combine research with literature, model assessments, experimental findings and expert input to judge biological feasibility
• Identify gaps in expertise and frame questions for external specialists
• Translate scientific risk judgments into dual-use policy boundaries, evaluation priorities and mitigation requirements
• Work with threat modelers, automated-safety researchers, experimental scientists and mitigation engineers to design evaluations and red-teaming studies

Required qualifications

• PhD or comparable experience in computational biology or a related quantitative biological discipline
• Record of original research from question formulation and computational study design through to defensible findings
• Substantive experience assessing biological dual-use risks
• Strong understanding of pathogen- or toxin-related risks or other consequential biological misuse
• Prior experience applying biological expertise to AI safety through analysis informing threat models, evaluation, red-teaming, or mitigation design
• Sound judgment about the relationship between computational predictions, biological function and experimental evidence
• Strong quantitative analysis and scientific programming skills
• Ability to develop computational approaches and run reproducible studies
• Ability to investigate unfamiliar questions and communicate defensible conclusions across scientific, engineering and policy teams

Nice to have

• Experience connecting biological modeling or design to experimental validation, including workflows combining LLMs, specialized models, agents or laboratory automation
• Experience commissioning specialist research or coordinating external scientific collaborators

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Employer-paid life and disability insurance
• Flexible time off with generous company wide holidays
• Paid parental leave
• Educational assistance program
• Commuter benefits, including bike share memberships for office based employees
• Company subsidized lunch program

About the company

Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. The company combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science.