---
title: 'Senior Researcher, Civil Safety Sciences at Future of Life Organizations'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-researcher-civil-safety-sciences-future-of-life-organizations-remote-y96ks7cm2h36'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-11'
---

# Senior Researcher, Civil Safety Sciences at Future of Life Organizations

- **Company:** Future of Life Organizations
- **Location:** Remote
- **Compensation:** $155k–$215k
- **Employment:** contract
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-05-27
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/futureof-life/c0cf4d6d-396e-40eb-bdda-fceb3337f25b

## Job description

Job Summary

AI is compressing the timelines on which genuinely novel threats emerge, opening hazard classes that fall outside the established CBRN-and-cyber playbooks that governments are organizing themselves to address. The most consequential risks may be ones for which no detection apparatus, response doctrine, or scientific community yet exists.

CARMA's Civil Safety Sciences program advances the detection sciences, response protocols, and resilience technologies that let people, communities, and the biosphere better foresee, curtail, endure, and recover from civilizational shocks. In this role, you'll help shape that portfolio: anticipating novel hazard classes, advancing next-generation detection and resilience approaches, identifying safety technologies whose earlier maturation shifts the offense-defense balance, and weaving the scientific coordination that lets dispersed researchers function as a coherent field. You'll work under the direction of the Executive Director while running projects with significant intellectual autonomy.

This position is 100% remote but requires occasional travel, including periodic visits to laboratories and research groups for technical discussions and demonstrations.

## About CARMA

The Center for AI Risk Management & Alignment (CARMA) works to help society navigate the complex and potentially catastrophic risks arising from increasingly powerful AI systems. Our mission is specifically to lower the risks to humanity and the biosphere from transformative AI.

We focus on grounding AI risk management in rigorous analysis, developing policy frameworks that squarely address AGI, advancing technical safety approaches, and fostering global perspectives on durable safety. Through these complementary approaches, CARMA aims to provide critical support to society for managing the outsized risks from advanced AI before they materialize.

CARMA is a fiscally-sponsored project of Social & Environmental Entrepreneurs, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public benefit corporation.

## Key Responsibilities

- Conduct structured horizon-scanning for novel AI-enabled hazard classes, and develop methodologies for reasoning rigorously about threats that lack historical base rates or established scientific communities
- Investigate next-generation detection sciences, such as dynamic and adaptive pathogen surveillance, and analogous open-ended approaches for other emerging hazard modalities
- Pursue feasibility analyses on deep resilience and lifeline capacities engineered to function when conventional infrastructure, sunlight, or centralized coordination cannot be assumed
- Analyze biosphere-scale vulnerabilities, including geoengineering, synthetic microbes for terraforming or remediation, and nontraditional environmental toxicology arising from AI-enabled activity
- Identify and selectively advance defensive, stabilizing, and transparency-enhancing technologies whose differential acceleration favors humanity
- Develop scientific metaresearch on how evidence is generated, aggregated, and translated into action where conventional empirical feedback loops are weak
- Build scientific coordination capacity through standards, convenings, and cross-border working relationships, and equip frontline responders and community networks with usable decision support
- Co-author grant applications, build analytical tools that make catastrophic risks more legible, and translate findings for policymakers, technical audiences, and the public
- Collaborate across CARMA programs to integrate civil safety perspectives with broader risk assessment, governance, and technical safety workstreams

Required Qualifications

- Advanced degree (PhD or >1 MS preferred) in a hard-science or engineering discipline, with demonstrated breadth across multiple natural science fields. Strong candidates may come from any of, or combinations across: biosecurity, microbiology, ecology, environmental or atmospheric science, agricultural and food systems science, chemistry, materials science, physics, public health, biomedical or systems engineering, resilience engineering, security sciences, or related fields
- Substantive familiarity with adversarial environments and adversarial reasoning, broadly construed: grounded in security studies, biosecurity, cybersecurity, defense analysis, red-teaming, safety engineering, dual-use technology assessment, or comparable experience reasoning rigorously about deliberate misuse and worst-case dynamics
- Demonstrated ability to reason carefully about hazards that lack robust historical data or settled detection paradigms
- 5+ years of relevant research or applied experience, with a track record of running independent projects from framing through delivery
- Strong publication record or equivalent body of work on technological risk, resilience, detection science, or related domains
- Excellent written and verbal communication, with proven ability to translate technical content for policymakers, funders, and non-specialist audiences
- Systems thinking and comfort with substantial uncertainty and rapidly shifting knowledge landscapes
- Substantive grounding in modern AI capabilities and trajectories, sufficient to anticipate how advancing AI reshapes threat and defense landscapes in your areas of work
- Self-directed, with sound judgment for identifying high-leverage problems under broad rather than micromanaged direction

Pluses

- Interdisciplinary credentials bridging two or more of: biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, computer science, ecology, or public health
- Direct experience in biosurveillance, civil defense or emergency preparedness, food security, environmental monitoring, geoengineering analysis, biosafety, or critical infrastructure protection
- Background in scientific metaresearch, evidence synthesis, horizon scanning, structured expert elicitation, or foresight methodologies
- Experience with grant writing, science diplomacy, standards development, or convening dispersed research communities
- Skills in tool building, modeling, or dashboard development for risk visualization and decision support
- Track record of contributions to AI safety, AI governance, biosecurity policy, or adjacent fields
- Familiarity with cognitive and epistemic security, or experience working with frontline responders, mutual aid networks, or community-level resilience capacity

CARMA/SEE is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We will not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex, age, religion, gender reassignment, partnership status, maternity, or sexual orientation. We are, by policy and action, an inclusive organization and actively promote equal opportunities for all humans with the right mix of talent, knowledge, skills, attitude, and potential, so hiring is only based on individual merit for the job. Our organization operates through a fiscal sponsor whose infrastructure only supports persons authorized to work in the U.S. as employees. Candidates outside the U.S. would be engaged as independent contractors with project-focused responsibilities. Note that we are unable to sponsor visas at this time.

## About Future of Life Organizations

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a non-profit organization that works to steer transformative technologies—especially artificial intelligence—toward outcomes that benefit all life, by combining research, advocacy, grantmaking, and public outreach.
- **Entity Type**: Non‑profit (private foundation)
- **Headquarters**: Campbell, California, USA (with additional offices in Washington D.C., Brussels, Belgium, and London, UK)
- **Founded**: 2014
- **Founders**: Max Tegmark, Victoria Krakovna, Anthony Aguirre

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: AI safety & governance, existential risk mitigation, technology policy, futures research
- **Target customers**: Policymakers, government institutions, academic researchers, technologists, and the general public
- **Mission**: “Steer the development of transformative technologies toward the flourishing of all life on earth.”

## Products & Services
- **Grantmaking**: Provides financial support to individuals and organizations working on projects aligned with FLI’s mission (e.g., AI safety research, governance initiatives). In 2024, grantmaking expenditures totaled $8.4 M.
- **Policy Research & Advocacy**: Produces policy papers, technical standards advice, and direct engagement with governments (e.g., US, EU, international) to strengthen governance of transformative technologies.
- **Educational Content & Podcast**: Produces a flagship podcast, op-eds, press commentary, and original multimedia content to inform public discourse on AI risks and opportunities.
- **Fellowships**: Offers PhD and Postdoctoral fellowships in Technical AI Existential Safety and US‑China AI Governance.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not applicable (non‑profit)
- **Key Metric**: Total 2024 expenditure of ~$17.4 M; income from fundraising was ~$85 k (covered by endowment)
- **Notable Donors / Partners**: Elon Musk (seed funding for first academic AI safety grant program), Vitalik Buterin (major unconditional contribution in 2021, partly serving as endowment)
- **Growth Signals**: Expanded from a volunteer‑run organization to a full‑time staff of 20+ members across four offices; continues to hire for new roles (policy, research, communications, grantmaking)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Mission‑driven focus**: Entirely dedicated to reducing existential risks from AI and other transformative technologies—a rare, single‑minded purpose that attracts top talent.
- **Independent funding**: Endowment from Vitalik Buterin ensures long‑term stability and freedom to pursue the mission without compromise.
- **Network & credibility**: Deep connections with leading AI researchers, policymakers, and philanthropists; respected voice in global AI governance discussions.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI governance**: Strengthening international frameworks and national policies for safe AI development (e.g., US‑China AI governance, EU AI Act engagement).
- **Grantmaking expansion**: Growing the community of researchers and practitioners working on extreme risks.
- **Futures program**: Using worldbuilding, scenario planning, and forecasting to identify actionable pathways toward beneficial outcomes from transformative technologies.
- **Communication**: Scaling public awareness through media, podcasts, and educational content to build broader support for AI safety.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Highly autonomous, action‑oriented, and mission‑focused—team members have creative and operational freedom to formulate and pursue projects.
- **Remote / Hybrid**: Most roles offer home‑working options; team is spread globally with physical offices in Campbell (CA), Washington DC, Brussels, and London.
- **Benefits (US employees)**: Competitive salaries benchmarked against US foundations, 4 months fully paid parental leave, work‑from‑home allowance, learning & development allowance, 24+ days paid time off, 401k pension matching, health insurance.
- **Engineering & Research Culture**: Small, high‑impact team where each person can translate ideas into tangible results; emphasis on interdisciplinary work (machine learning, policy, behavioral science, etc.).
- **Hiring Process**: Typically includes a paid work test, panel interviews, and reference checks; values exceptional talent aligned with the mission.

## Sources
1. [Future of Life Institute – Careers page on Lever](https://jobs.lever.co/futureoflife/)
2. [Future of Life Institute – About Us](https://futureoflife.org/about-us/)
3. [Future of Life Institute – Careers](https://futureoflife.org/about-us/careers/)
4. [Future of Life Institute – 2024 Annual Report (PDF)](https://futureoflife.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/FLI-2024-Annual-Report.pdf)

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