Senior Researcher - MIT AI Risk Initiative

Position overview

As AI capabilities rapidly advance, we face critical information gaps in effective AI risk management: 

• What are the risks from AI, which are most important, and what are the critical gaps in response?
• What are the mitigations for AI risks, and which are the highest priority to implement?
• Which AI risks and mitigations are relevant to which actors and sectors?
• Which mitigations are being implemented, and which are neglected?
• How is the above changing over time?

Within MIT FutureTech, the MIT AI Risk Initiative aims to provide credible, timely, and decision-relevant answers to these questions. Our core outputs include the risk repository, incident tracker, mitigations database, and governance map.

We are hiring a Senior Researcher to strengthen the MIT AI Risk Initiative’s applied research, stakeholder engagement, and project delivery.

This is a research staff role. The primary function is to lead and deliver applied research workstreams that help decision-makers understand AI risks, mitigations, organizational responses, and gaps in practice. The role also includes substantial responsibility for stakeholder engagement, partnership management, and project operations, because our research is designed to be timely, decision-relevant, and useful to policymakers, industry, civil society, and researchers.

The ideal candidate will be comfortable moving between rigorous applied research, practical project delivery, and external engagement. They should be able to design and execute evidence synthesis and survey work, translate findings into useful outputs, manage contributors and workflows, and engage with collaborators, funders, and end users to ensure the work addresses real decision needs.

What you’ll do

• Evidence synthesis and measurement
  
  • Design and execute systematic reviews of organizational AI risk responses (search, screening, extraction, coding, and quality assurance).
  • Develop and maintain research protocols, codebooks, and documentation to ensure results are reproducible and updateable over time.
  • Analyze qualitative and quantitative data and synthesize findings into clear conclusions.
• Surveys and expert input
  
  • Design and field surveys to gather structured input from relevant populations (for example, experts, practitioners, or organizations).
  • Analyze results and integrate them with evidence from literature and documents.
• Research outputs and decision support
  
  • Write and disseminate research outputs for both technical and applied audiences (datasets, memos, briefs, and publications).
  • Translate findings into practical decision-support tools for end users (for example, structured datasets, frameworks, and guidance materials).
• Stakeholder engagement
  
  • Engage stakeholders across government, industry, civil society, and research to understand decision needs and ensure outputs are usable.
  • Support external meetings, briefings, and workshops; communicate results clearly to non-specialist audiences.
  • Help manage relationships with collaborators, funders, and end users, including responding to inquiries and coordinating inputs.
  • Represent the project in selected external meetings, briefings, workshops, and events, in coordination with the broader team.
• Project delivery and operations
  
  • Plan and deliver workstreams end-to-end, including scoping, timelines, resourcing, and risk management.
  • Manage project coordination logistics and maintain clear process documentation.
  • Track budgets and contractor spend where relevant; support procurement and payments in coordination with MIT processes.
• Grants and funding support
  
  • Contribute to grant and proposal development (narrative sections, workplans, budgets, and supporting materials).
  • Support funder updates and reporting by translating progress into clear milestones, outputs, and next steps.
• Lab participation
  
  • Participate actively in the MIT FutureTech research community by attending lab meetings, sharing updates on workstreams, and contributing feedback on related projects.
  • Collaborate with other lab members to align methods, improve research quality, and identify new research opportunities.
• Team leadership
  
  • Manage and mentor junior researchers.
  • Coordinate work with internal and external contributors (including contractors where relevant).

Supervision Received

• Reports to Neil Thompson, with day-to-day supervision and project guidance from Peter Slattery and other members of the team as appropriate.
• Works under general oversight with direction on non-routine issues  

Supervision Exercised

• May guide the work of internal and external project support staff and writers
• May provide coaching and on-the-job training 

Qualifications & Skills

Minimum Required Education and Experience

• 5+ years experience in applied research methods
• Publications or research output in an applied social science (e.g., economics, psychology, behavioral science) or relevant field
• Demonstrated ability in conducting systematic reviews and surveys. 
• In-depth understanding of principles and practice of research
• Prior experience in consulting, project management, or operations, preferably in a research, academic, or technology-oriented environment
• Strong analytical skills with both qualitative and quantitative data
• Stakeholder engagement experience, such as working with clients, partners, funders, or end users to understand needs and communicate results clearly.
• Leadership experience, including supervising, mentoring, or coordinating junior researchers and collaborators and leading research projects, programs, or functions.
• Operational competence in a research, academic, consulting, or technology-oriented environment (for example, maintaining process documentation, coordinating vendors/contractors, and navigating administrative workflows).
• Comfort with budgets and resourcing, such as tracking spend against a plan, managing contractor time, or supporting financial reporting (depth can vary; we are looking for practical fluency).

Preferred Education 

• PhD degree
• Honours degree or higher in an applied social science (e.g., psychology, behavioral science) or relevant field

Preferred Experience

• Grant writing experience
• Consulting experience 
• Experience producing decision-focused outputs (for example, policy briefs, executive memos, toolkits, or structured evidence summaries).
• AI risk, AI governance, or AI safety expertise

Other information

• One-year term based on research grant funding, with possibility of renewal subject to funding and project needs.
• This is an on-site role based at MIT in Cambridge, MA.
• We have a slight preference for candidates who can work hours that overlap with Australia (later afternoon and evening). 
• Full-time is preferred, but part-time commitments will also be considered.

Selection process

• Short test task
• Interview
• Potential paid work trial