Research Manager, AIxBio

The Cambridge Boston Alignment Initiative (CBAI) is a nonprofit research organization working to advance research and education directed towards ensuring that society navigates a safe and beneficial transition to advanced AI systems. Our work takes the form of producing original research efforts and accelerating AI safety research through fellowship programs.

After a successful 2025 launch of our AI Safety Research Fellowship — whose inaugural cohort published a spotlight paper at the Mechanistic Interpretability Workshop at NeurIPS, placed papers at ICLR, and produced fellows now at Goodfire and Redwood Research — we're rapidly scaling in 2026. As part of this growth, we are launching the inaugural AIxBio Research Fellowship, bringing the same high-touch, mentor-driven research model to the intersection of AI and biosecurity.

Refer us candidates, and receive $5,000 if we hire them.

You'll work closely with fellows and their mentors, biosecurity researchers, AI safety researchers, and domain experts from academia and industry, to support cutting-edge work at the intersection of AI and biosecurity. This might include capability evaluations on biological systems, regulatory frameworks for mitigating dual-use research risks, or other research agendas at the frontier of AI-enabled biosecurity threats. We are open to hiring Research Managers with technical research experience or policy and governance research experience. For the right fit, we are open to adjusting the scope and compensation of this role.

• Conduct frequent 1-1s with your fellows, providing feedback on research progress and helping them overcome obstacles, including debugging research designs, preparing literature scaffolds, and supporting data collection, analysis, and methodology development

• Provide substantive feedback on fellow research and help CBAI create an environment that nudges fellows toward rigor and clarity

• Connect fellows with resources, literature, and opportunities relevant to AI x biosecurity during and after the fellowship

• Communicate with fellows' mentors to define clear research objectives and support fellows' research progression

• Contribute to fellow selection by reviewing and interviewing candidates to ensure the cohort has strong epistemics and a relevant background

• Contribute to the design of reading groups, workshops, and supplementary programming for the AIxBio cohort

• Support special projects aligned with your strengths, such as applicant selection, evaluation frameworks, or mentor onboarding

• Meet weekly with program leadership to enhance feedback loops and continuously improve the program

• Stay current on developments at the intersection of AI and biosecurity relevant to your fellows' work

• Prepare periodic briefs on recent developments in the field for fellows

We expect you to be characterized by most of the qualities listed below.

We use a multi-stage process to find the right fit:

1. Application Review: We review applications on a rolling basis. Your application will be reviewed in detail by a CBAI employee.

2. Initial Phone Screen (15 minutes): A conversation with the team manager to discuss your background, interest in the role, and initial questions.

3. Paid Test Task: Strong candidates will receive a paid test task mirroring actual responsibilities, such as providing feedback on a research proposal, designing a program component, or creating an evaluation framework.

4. Interview: Includes discussion of your test task, a fellowship scenario case study, and a conversation with CBAI team members and potentially a mentor.

5. Reference Checks: Conducted for top finalists, followed by a final conversation to ensure mutual fit.

Offer: Selected candidates receive an offer and onboarding information.

CBAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, national origin, veteran status, or any other basis covered by appropriate law.

In acknowledgement of the research that suggests that women, gender minorities, and other marginalized groups may be less likely to apply for roles where they don’t meet every criterion, we especially encourage people in these categories to apply.

We may use AI to assist in the initial screening of applications, including to detect whether candidates have used AI models in drafting their application. Decisions are always made by a human on our team.