Senior Laboratory Associate

Description

The Urban Systems Lab (USL) at New York University seeks a full-time Senior Lab Associate to serve as the Technical Lead, support program management, and frontend software engineering for ClimateIQ and other high-impact projects within the Lab’s portfolio. ClimateIQ is a Google.org-supported, open-access AI climate risk tool to assist city planners and communities with emergency preparedness and local adaptations to climate hazards.

This position offers a unique opportunity to shape the next generation of climate data tools through interdisciplinary collaboration, technical innovation, and global partnerships. The successful candidate will serve as Technical Lead for ClimateIQ and provide scientific leadership across the Lab’s broader research programs, including oversight of modeling teams, public engagement, and high-level stakeholder communications.

Responsibilities

Technical Program Leadership

• Lead end-to-end technical implementation of ClimateIQ.

• Guide frontend development of ClimateIQ as well as integration with model outputs, ensuring a smooth user experience across dashboards and APIs.

• Manage and optimize project resources, schedules, and deliverables, working with the project's team to meet research goals.

• Maintain clear management documentation, reproducible pipelines, and code repositories.

• Identify and mitigate technical and project risks through proactive planning and communication.

• Direct development workflows integrating atmospheric (e.g., WRF) and flood (e.g., CityCAT, HEC-RAS 2D) models, including product optimization and scenario planning.

Data Management & Frontend Strategy

• Manage data pipelines for the ClimateIQ product as well as other urban and climate modeling products.

• Oversee frontend and backend code quality, reviews, and CI/CD processes.

• Guide methods development for geospatial analysis, risk visualization, and user-centered design.

Communication & Team Coordination

• Supervise and mentor a multidisciplinary team (data scientists, postdocs, and graduate fellows).

• Coordinate with the product team to launch sprints, reviews, and stakeholder meetings with modeling, product, and frontend teams.

• Represent ClimateIQ and USL in national and international forums, with strong emphasis on science communication, policy engagement, and advocacy.

• Support proposal writing with technical content and methodologies for grant applications.

Product & Stakeholder Engagement

• Work with UX researchers and designers to ensure model outputs are translated into public dashboard and APIs.

• Serve as primary technical liaison to partners at Google, city governments and other partners.

• Co-develop and manage timelines for product releases and publications.

 

In compliance with NYC’s Pay Transparency Act, the annual base salary for this position is $75,000. New York University considers factors such as (but not limited to) the specific grant funding and the terms of the research grant when extending an offer.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Urban Informatics, Machine Learning/AI, or a related field.

• Minimum 5 years of experience in technical program leadership, including experience with frontend and backend engineering for digital products.

• Experience deploying frontend applications to cloud platforms (e.g., Google Cloud Platform- GCP) and working with API management platforms (e.g., Apigee).

• Strong programming and modeling skills (e.g., Python, R, SQL, GIS, TensorFlow, PyTorch).

• Experience building dashboards for scientific or government applications..

• Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills.

• Familiarity with urban and climate data and modeling approaches.

 

 

Preferred Qualifications

• PhD degree in a relevant technical or climate-related discipline.

• Expertise in machine learning, AI model development, and cl