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

Permanent Faculty Working Title: Research Assistant Professor, Applied AI: Agent Evaluation & Data Governance (EI) Appointment Type: Fixed Term Faculty Vacancy ID: FAC0006211 Full-time/Part-time: Full-Time Permanent Hours per week: 40 FTE: 1 Position Location: North Carolina, US Hiring Range: $115,000 - $120,000 Proposed Start Date: 02/01/2027 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. Campus Security Authority Responsibilities: Not Applicable. Organization The nation’s first public university is at the heart of what’s next, preparing a diverse student body to become creators, explorers, innovators and leaders in North Carolina and throughout the world. Carolina’s nationally recognized, innovative teaching, campus-wide spirit of inquiry and dedication to public service continue the legacy that began in 1795 when the University first opened its doors to students. Here, in one of America's most beautiful college settings, we offer exceptional careers in richly diverse fields. Come explore what UNC-Chapel Hill has to offer you. Undergraduate Enrollment: 19,117 Graduate/Professional Enrollment: 10,894 Total Student Enrollment: 30,011 Founded: 1789, as the first state university in the United States Type of Institution: Public, four-year Faculty: 3,000 Percentage of faculty who hold Ph.D.s or the highest degrees in their field: 94 percent Faculty/student ratio: 1/14 Location: UNC is located in the heart of Chapel Hill, the best college town in America! It's a friendly town of about 40,000 in the geographical center of North Carolina. Chapel Hill is at the western point of the Research Triangle, an area of about one million people, comprised of Chapel Hill, the cities of Durham and Raleigh, and the Research Triangle Park, home of many corporate offices and scientific research centers. Carolina is about 30 miles from the state capital, Raleigh, and 20 minutes from Raleigh-Durham International Airport. Chapel Hill's main street, Franklin Street, borders the campus and offers shops, coffee houses, cafés, movie theaters and houses of worship. The town has a historic district, museum, library, parks, malls, and many recreational facilities.