Research Specialist

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a leading institution in innovative teaching and research. They are seeking a Research Specialist to contribute to the Center for Climate Leadership and AI-driven Integrity in Mitigation, focusing on the use of artificial intelligence for climate mitigation strategies. Responsibilities Research the use of LLMs as tools for mitigation strategy and accountability and scrutinize them as systems that can reproduce bias, misinformation, or greenwashing unless carefully benchmarked 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 Skills Bachelor's degree in a discipline related to the area of assignment; or equivalent combination of training and experience. All degrees must be received from appropriately accredited institutions Course work in Computer Science, Computing, Statistics 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 open-source code or deployed tools Solid programming and ML/ NLP engineering skills in Python or ideally modern deep-learning stacks (e.g., PyTorch/ JAX , HuggingFace/Transformers, vector databases, agentic/ RAG tooling), with ability to build reproducible research pipelines Proactive with ability to work in an interdisciplinary team environment Working knowledge of climate change mitigation or environmental governance, including familiarity with climate commitments, emissions accounting, or policy/action tracking Benefits Professional training opportunities for career growth Skill development and lifelong learning Exclusive perks that include numerous retail and restaurant discounts Savings on local child care centers Special rates for performing arts events Company Overview 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. It was founded in 1966, and is headquartered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US, with a workforce of 11-50 employees. Its website is