Research Data Technician

VCU School of Public Health is seeking a Research Data Technician to join their Department of Biostatistics. The role involves building an LLM based information retrieval engine, developing secure APIs, and ensuring compliance with data privacy standards. Responsibilities Build RAG Pipelines: Design and implement robust data pipelines to ingest, clean, chunk, and embed unstructured text data (PDFs, HTML, text) into a Vector Database Develop Secure APIs: Build the backend infrastructure using Python (FastAPI or Flask) to serve AI inferences to internal web applications Orchestrate LLM Logic: Use frameworks like LangChain or LlamaIndex to manage the interaction between user queries, the knowledge base, and the LLM Optimize for Accuracy: Implement 'Grounding' techniques to ensure model outputs are accurate, factual, and cited—critical requirements in a medical setting Privacy & Compliance: Collaborate with our IT security team to ensure all AI deployments adhere to strict HIPAA and data privacy standards Skills Strong Proficiency in Python: comfortable writing production-ready code, not just notebook scripts. Experience with Pandas/NumPy is required Generative AI Experience: You understand the RAG architecture. You have likely built a project using OpenAI APIs, Hugging Face, or local LLMs (Llama 3, Mistral) API Development: Experience building RESTful APIs to connect data science models to front-end interfaces Demonstrated experience and flexibility working in and fostering an environment of respect, professionalism, and civility with a population of faculty, staff, and students from various backgrounds and experiences, or a commitment to do so as a staff member of VCU Currently enrolled in or recently graduated from a Master's or PhD program in Computer Science, Data Science, Bioinformatics, or a related field Hands-on experience with Vector Databases (ChromaDB, Pinecone, Milvus, etc.) Familiarity with containerization (Docker) for deploying applications Interest in NLP (Natural Language Processing) specifically within the healthcare or biomedical domain Benefits All VCU employee types are eligible for a wide array of benefits to support you during your employment at VCU. Consult the benefits website for information on benefits eligibility according to employee type. Company Overview The School of Public Health at VCU was established in July 2023, bringing the departments of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Health Policy, and Social and Behavioral Sciences together under a unified focus on public and population health. It was founded in undefined, and is headquartered in Richmond, VA, US, with a workforce of 51-200 employees. Its website is Company H1B Sponsorship VCU School of Public Health has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships, with 2 in 2021. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role.