Research Assistant Professor, Applied AI: Agent Evaluation & Data Governance (EI)

About the job

Working Title

Research Assistant Professor, Applied AI: Agent Evaluation & Data Governance (EI)

Be a Tar Heel!

This position may be eligible for a hybrid work arrangement that may include a partially remote work location, consistent with System Office policy. UNC-Chapel Hill employees are generally required to reside within a reasonable commuting distance of their assigned duty station.

A global higher education leader in innovative teaching, research and public service, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill consistently ranks as one of the nation’s top public universities. Known for its beautiful campus, world-class medical care, commitment to the arts and top athletic programs, Carolina is an ideal place to teach, work and learn.

One of the best college towns and best places to live in the United States, Chapel Hill has diverse social, cultural, recreation and professional opportunities that span the campus and community.

University employees can choose from a wide range of professional training opportunities for career growth, skill development and lifelong learning and enjoy exclusive perks for numerous retail, restaurant and performing arts discounts, savings on local child care centers and special rates on select campus events. UNC-Chapel Hill offers full-time employees a comprehensive benefits package, paid leave, and a variety of health, life and retirement plans and additional programs that support a healthy work/life balance.

Primary Purpose of Organizational Unit

The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy (www.pharmacy.unc.edu) is one of six health science schools (Pharmacy, Nursing, Dentistry, Social Work, Public Health, Medicine) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is one of the oldest health science academic programs at Chapel Hill. The School teaches approximately 600 PharmD students and 145 graduate students. The School has built a reputation for its continued pursuit of excellence, rigorous education and training programs, cutting-edge multidisciplinary research, progressive pharmacy practices, efficient business operations, and its outstanding faculty, staff, and students. The School was named the number one School of Pharmacy in the U.S. by the U.S. News and World Report. The School has experienced unprecedented growth and success and continues to strategically position itself for sustained impact, as articulated in the School’s Strategic Plan (https://pharmacy.unc.edu/about/oe/strategic-plan/).

Our Vision is to be the global leader in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences. Our Mission is to prepare leaders and innovators to solve the world’s most pressing health care challenges. We are Advancing Medicine for Life through innovation and collaboration in pharmacy practice, education, research, and public service.

Position Summary

Eshelman Innovation, housed in the nation’s #1 pharmacy school, was created to address translational challenges with a game-changing new approach to academic innovation and commercialization. Its venture studio runs on Kalphai, an agentic AI venture builder spanning the full venture lifecycle, from intake and evidence-grounded assessment of new concepts through venture coaching, program management, and an AI-assisted path toward pilot-ready software, operating today on real faculty deal flow under the University’s security and data-governance controls and architected in partnership with AWS. Eshelman Innovation seeks a dynamic leader to establish the AI assurance and data governance program that makes Kalphai deployable, defensible, and commercially viable across academic medical centers and university innovation organizations. The chosen candidate will serve as the Principal Investigator for this program and will focus on producing the evidence, tooling, and documentation that allow a partner institution to entrust its innovation portfolio to the platform. This position provides an opportunity to define what trustworthy agentic AI looks like in a real institutional deployment, rather than in a benchmark.

Minimum Education and Experience Requirements

Ph.D. in computer science, machine learning or artificial intelligence, biomedical or health informatics, data science, statistics, human-computer interaction, software engineering, or a related field. Candidates whose doctoral training lies outside these fields but who bring directly relevant technical research experience are encouraged to apply.

Preferred Qualifications, Competencies, and Experience

Research or applied experience evaluating machine-learning or AI systems, ideally including large language models or multi-agent systems, with a measurement-first stance toward any claim about how a system behaves. Strong programming ability in Python, TypeScript, or comparable languages, and demonstrated comfort building research tooling against a production codebase, across services, cloud infrastructure, and version-controlled deployment. Working understanding of data-governance and privacy principles including de-identification, provenance, retention and deletion, access control, and tenant isolation.

Experience red-teaming or safety-testing LLM applications, or building evaluation and observability tooling for agentic systems. Familiarity with health-data regulation and governance, including HIPAA, FERPA, IRB processes, and technology transfer or Bayh-Dole context, or experience in academic medical, university innovation, or other regulated settings. Experience with retrieval-augmented generation, agent frameworks, or cloud AI services such as AWS Bedrock and AgentCore, and with infrastructure-as-code and multi-tenant architectures. A record of translating technical work into compliance-facing, procurement-facing, or otherwise non-technical documentation. Experience working with security or privacy reviewers, or with responsible disclosure practice.

Experience leading or contributing to complex technical collaborations, including mentoring students or junior colleagues. Excellent written and verbal communication, including publishing in respected refereed venues and presenting to varied academic, institutional, and commercial audiences.

Academic Personnel Office Contact Information

If you experience any problems accessing the system or have questions about the application process, please contact the University’s Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost office at (919)-962-1091 or send an email to facultyrecruitment@unc.edu.

Please note: The Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost office will not be able to provide specific updates regarding position or application status.

If you have any questions about the job requirements or the hiring department notify the Department Contact.