Research Intern - AI for Neuroscience

Persons in these roles are expected to work from our offices in Seattle. On-site requirements vary based on position and team. If you have questions about on-site work arrangements for this role, please ask your recruiter.

*Compensation dependent on current degree enrollment. 
Research Intern, Undergrad: $94,320 (Annually) 
Research Intern, Masters: $106,110 (Annually) 
Research Intern, PhD: $140,000 (Annually) 

Who You Are:

Are you passionate about AI, and its potential to help accelerate science?

Ai2's Asta Project (https://allenai.org/asta) aims to rapidly advance science, developing solutions in the areas of AI research assistants for scientists, literature understanding and synthesis, end-to-end discovery, human-AI interaction and intelligent interfaces, data-driven discovery, agents that can learn over time, methods for training agentic models, and the evaluation and benchmarking of agents.

Part of this work is conducted within a scientific domain rather than alongside one. We collaborate directly with research scientists at the Allen Institute and elsewhere on their primary data, including electrophysiology, single-cell, and spatial transcriptomic measurements of human brain tissue. Our aim is to build agentic workflows that meet the standards of rigorous scientific work and to push the tools we already have to their full potential in support of research that is only now possible with AI. Doing this well depends on knowing when an  AI-generated hypothesis or causal claim is scientifically sound, and this calls for researchers who can evaluate such a claim against the underlying biology. We welcome applications from candidates trained in neuroscience or another life science who bring strong computational skills to that training.

We are seeking ambitious researchers with a background in biology or neuroscience, prepared to take on problems at the frontier of AI for science. You will be working on a neuroscience project, helping to find ways to use and advance asta tools to rapidly advance neuroscience research.

Topics you can explore during the internship:

• Agentic planning, reasoning, learning, and evaluation.
• AI workflows for scientific discovery.
• Data-driven discovery (integrating your own or publicly available sequencing or electrophysiology dataset with AI workflows)
• Evaluation of AI-generated hypotheses, causal claims, and analyses against experimental data and domain expertise.
• AI workflows incorporating scientific literature and automated hypothesis generation and testing.

See our publications for examples of our work.

https://allenai.org/papers?tags=Asta

We will continue to consider applications on a rolling basis but for full consideration for start dates in summer 2027, please apply by December 1, 2026 to be included in the first round of reviews.

Ai2 Research Internship Information:

• Duration: 12 weeks
• Start Date: Flexible
• Candidates: A PhD student with a strong research background

Who We Are: 

The Asta Research Team (Semantic Scholar and Aristo based in Seattle) at the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) is an interdisciplinary research team focused on AI, HCI, ML, and NLP in support of our mission of accelerating science with intelligent and interactive research assistants. We regularly publish in high-profile conferences in NLP (e.g., ACL, EMNLP), HCI (e.g., CHI, UIST, CSCW), ML (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR), IR (e.g., SIGIR), and Accessibility (ASSETS). A portion of this work is conducted jointly with domain scientists, on their datasets and their open research questions.

Your Next Challenge:

Research interns on our team will have the opportunity to:

• Conduct high-impact research and author scientific papers for publication in high-profile computing and scientific venues.
• Collaborate with and learn from a dedicated Ai2 mentor and other team members across Ai2, including scientists and engineers.

To see more about our current, future, and past interns at Ai2, check out the  internship page on our website!

What You’ll Need:

• Currently enrolled in a PhD program in neuroscience, biology, or a related life science, or in a computational discipline with biological research experience.
• Demonstrated independent experience in performing and integrating biological research and computational analysis. Please reference the resulting publication, preprint, thesis chapter, code repository, or dataset. Peer-reviewed publication is not a requirement.
• Familiarity with Python, using AI agents for scientific data analysis (Claude Code, Claude for Science, Asta, Codex, etc.) and constructing reproducible analysis pipelines. 
• Familiarity with the analysis of primary experimental data, including the judgment required to assess data quality and work within its limitations.

Physical Demands and Work Environment:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a team member to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions.

• Must be able to remain in a stationary position for long periods of time. 
• The ability to communicate information and ideas so others will understand. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations. 
• The ability to observe details at close range.
• Can work under deadlines.

A Little More About Ai2:

Ai2 is a Seattle based non-profit AI research institute founded in 2014 by the late Paul Allen. Our mission is building breakthrough AI to solve the world’s biggest problems. We develop foundational AI research and innovation to deliver real-world impact through large-scale open models, data, robotics, conservation, and beyond.

In addition to Ai2’s core mission, we also aim to contribute to humanity through our treatment of each member of the Ai2 Team. Some highlights are:

• We are a learning organization – because everything Ai2 does is ground-breaking, we are learning every day. With a wide variety of world-class AI experts as guest speakers, and our commitment to your personal on-going education, Ai2 is a place where you will have opportunities to continue learning alongside your coworkers. 
• We value diversity - We seek to hire, support, and promote people from all genders, ethnicities, and all levels of experience regardless of age. We particularly encourage applications from women, non-binary individuals, people of color, members of the LGBTQA+ community, and people with disabilities of any kind. 
• We value inclusion - We understand the value that people's individual experiences and perspectives can bring to an organization, and we are building a culture in which all voices are heard, respected and considered.
• We emphasize a healthy work/life balance – we believe our team members are happiest and most productive when their work/life balance is optimized. While we value powerful research results which drive our mission forward, we also value dinner with family, weekend time, and vacation time. We offer generous paid vacation and sick leave as well as family leave.
• We are collaborative and transparent – we consider ourselves a team, all moving with a common purpose. We are quick to cheer our successes, and even quicker to share and jointly problem solve our failures.
• We are in Seattle – and our office is on the water! We have mountains, we have lakes, we have four seasons, we bike to work, we have a vibrant theater scene, and we have so much else. We welcome interest from applicants from outside of the United States.
• We are friendly– chances are you will like every one of the 200+ (and growing) people who work here. We do. 

Ai2 is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. You may view the related Know Your Rights compliance poster and the Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision by clicking on their corresponding links. 

This employer participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E-Verify cannot confirm that you are authorized to work, this employer is required to give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) so you can begin to resolve the issue before the employer can take any action against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E-Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I-9.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to employees and applicants with disabilities to the full extent required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you feel you need a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA, you are encouraged to contact us at [email protected].

Benefits:

• Team members and their families are covered by medical, dental, vision, and an employee assistance program.
• Team members are able to enroll in our health savings account plan, our healthcare reimbursement arrangement plan, and our health care and dependent care flexible spending account plans.
• Team members will receive $125 per month to assist with commuting or internet expenses and will also receive $200 per month for fitness and wellbeing expenses.
• Team members will accrue sick days per year in line with Seattle sick time requirements. If you are usually scheduled to work on a holiday that Ai2 recognizes as a day off, you will be paid for this day.

Note: This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the team members(s) of this position. Team members will be required to follow any other job-related instructions and to perform any other job-related duties requested by any person authorized to give instructions or assignments. All duties and responsibilities are essential functions and requirements and are subject to possible modification to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities. To perform this job successfully, the team member(s) will possess the skills, aptitudes, and abilities to perform each duty proficiently. Some requirements may exclude individuals who pose a direct threat or significant risk to the health or safety of themselves or others. The requirements listed in this document are the minimum levels of knowledge, skills, or abilities. This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an at will relationship.