Careers

FRF positions are initially two-year appointments, renewable for a third year contingent on performance. Fellows will be based, and have a principal office or workspace, at the Simons Foundation’s offices in New York City. Fellows may also be eligible for subsidized housing within walking distance of the Flatiron Institute. The start date is between July 2025 and October 2025.
 
Flatiron Research Fellows are mentored by one or more research scientists. They are also encouraged to carry out an independent research program, to collaborate across the various centers at the institute, to participate in the institute’s vibrant activities such as workshops and seminars, and to mentor students through our summer internship program. They are expected to disseminate their results through scientific publication, conferences, and/or software distribution. Fellows receive a generous travel and research budget, and have access to the institute’s powerful scientific computing resources.

The Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute seeks a full-time Research Fellow position as part of its new initiative, Polymathic AI, Building Foundation Models for Science. Recent advances in machine learning, including Large Language Models and diffusion-based generative models have driven significant advances in Artificial Intelligence. The Flatiron Institute seeks to leverage these ideas to develop the next generation of AI-powered scientific analysis tools, seeking more powerful and more interpretable models with broad applications to many scientific disciplines. Our group includes researchers from multiple scientific disciplines ranging from machine learning, to astrophysics, biology, neuroscience, and quantum computing.

The Simons Foundation is a private foundation established in 1994 in New York City by Jim and Marilyn Simons. With an annual grants and programs budget of $300 million, the foundation’s mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences. The foundation pursues its mission through its grant-making division, comprising programs in Mathematics & Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, Education & Outreach and autism research, and through its internal research division, the Flatiron Institute.

The Flatiron Institute, an internal research division of the Simons Foundation, is a community of scientists who are working to use modern computational tools to advance our understanding of science both through the analysis of large, rich datasets and through the simulations of physical processes. Our mission is to advance scientific research through computational methods, including data analysis, theory, modeling and simulation.

Applications are invited for either the Research Scientist or Senior Research Scientist level at the Center for Computational Mathematics (CCM), in the Flatiron Institute, in all our active areas of research. These include:

• machine learning, especially the areas of optimization, learning theory, probabilistic modeling, deep learning, and high dimensional data analysis, as well as applications of scientific interest at Flatiron (e.g., cosmological modeling, quantum many-body systems, computational neuroscience)
• statistical methodology, modeling, and inference
• probabilistic and differential programming
• computational physics, including biophysics, statistical mechanics, fluid mechanics, quantum physics, and molecular dynamics
• numerical methods for partial differential equations and integral equations
• signal and image processing, with a particular focus on cryo-electron microscopy
• numerical analysis, including numerical linear algebra and high-order methods
• high performance computing and open source software libraries

The Initiative for Computational Catalysis (ICC) seeks seasonal, full-time paid research interns interested in developing and implementing the concepts, algorithms and codes needed to obtain insight into the microscopic processes of catalytic reactions, and ultimately to predict materials with targeted catalytic properties. Research projects are available in areas of electronic structure, molecular dynamics, and machine learning. For more information about ICC research, please visit the ICC website.

Applications are invited for paid, full-time research internships at the Center for Computational Mathematics (CCM) in all our active areas of research. CCM is one of five centers of the Flatiron Institute, an internal research division of the Simons Foundation. Our mission at CCM is to create new mathematical approaches, algorithms and software to advance scientific research in multiple disciplines, often in collaboration with other Flatiron Centers.

Tremendous opportunities exist at the intersection of mathematics, computer science, statistics, and their scientific applications, with the lines between theory, algorithm development and software implementation often blurred. Beyond the creation of new simulation and analysis methods, a major goal of CCM is to make these methods available to the scientific community. The Center also hosts an array of meetings, workshops and conferences, serving as a focal point for the field internationally.

The Center for Computational Neuroscience (CCN) aims to develop theories, models, and computational methods that deepen our knowledge of brain function. CCN takes a “systems” neuroscience approach, building models that are motivated by fundamental principles, that are constrained by properties of neural circuits and responses, and that provide insights into perception, cognition and behavior. This cross-disciplinary approach not only leads to the design of new model-driven scientific experiments, but also encapsulates current functional descriptions of the brain that can spur the development of new engineered computational systems, especially in the realm of machine learning. CCN is one of five centers that make up the Flatiron Institute, an internal scientific unit of the Simons Foundation, focused on computational aspects of a wide range of basic science. The overall mission of the Flatiron Institute is to advance scientific research through computational methods, including theory, modeling, simulation and data analysis.

The Center for Computational Biology (CCB) of the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute is actively seeking enthusiastic, full-time post-doctoral Flatiron Research Fellows to join its Structural and Molecular Biophysics group. The Structural and Molecular Biophysics team, a collaborative effort between CCB and the Center for Computational Mathematics (CCM) uses computational tools to study biological macromolecules, running long timescale molecular simulations and developing statistical analysis and machine learning tools to better capture the dynamics of these molecules and understand their biological function. Areas of interest include in particular statistical mechanics, membrane protein structural biology, protein modeling with flexibility, cryo-electron microscopy, thermodynamics, modeling the effect of mutations, and intrinsically disordered proteins. Applicants with backgrounds in mathematics, statistics, structural biology, computational chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, or computer science are especially encouraged to apply. We are further interested in those with backgrounds in software development with skills related to methods development in cryo-EM or molecular dynamics simulation or machine learning in the context of computer vision and 3D reconstruction. Applications will be reviewed beginning in December 2024 and considered on a rolling basis until the positions are filled. For full consideration, applying by March 15, 2025 is recommended.

The Center for Computational Biology (CCB) of the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute is actively seeking enthusiastic, full-time post-doctoral Flatiron Research Fellows to join its Genomics group. The Genomics group works to interpret genomes and distill the immensely complex networks that form the foundation of human biology and disease, through accurate machine learning models. Current areas of interest include developing deep learning approaches for genome interpretation; development of methods for multi-omic and spatial data analysis and integration with phenotypic and clinical data; and machine learning and AI approaches for network modeling and regulatory module detection. These and other methods are developed in tight collaboration with experimental biologists, biomedical scientists, and clinicians and are applied to specific biological problems, both fundamental and biomedical. Applications will be reviewed beginning January 2025 and considered on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

Applications are invited for postdoctoral Flatiron Research Fellowships (FRFs) at the Center for Computational Neuroscience (CCN) within the Flatiron Institute at the Simons Foundation. CCN’s research groups include:

● Computational vision (PI: Eero Simoncelli)

● Neural circuits and algorithms (PI: Dmitri ‘Mitya’ Chklovskii)

● Statistical analysis of neural data (PI: Alex Williams)

The mission of CCN is to develop theories, models, and computational methods that deepen our knowledge of brain function. CCN takes a vertically-integrated “systems” neuroscience approach, building models that are motivated by fundamental principles, that are constrained by properties of neural circuits and responses, and that provide insights into perception, cognition and behavior. This cross-disciplinary approach not only leads to the design of new model-driven scientific experiments, but also encapsulates current functional descriptions of the brain that can spur the development of new engineered computational systems, especially in the realm of machine learning.

The Center for Computational Quantum Physics (CCQ) of the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute, invites applications for temporary full-time positions as Predoctoral Researchers. This program provides graduate students pursuing their PhD in a relevant field the opportunity to be employed at the CCQ for four months for the purpose of working on a research project with one or more CCQ staff mentors. This position will be based onsite at the foundation in New York City. Applicants for this position must have the approval of their thesis advisor. The application deadline is April 7, 2025 to be considered for the fall 2025 session.

Each summer, the Center for Computational Quantum Physics hires seasonal, full-time research interns interested in developing and implementing the concepts, algorithms and codes needed to understand the quantum mechanical behavior of many-particle systems, and to translate this understanding into useful predictions of the behavior of molecules and materials. Under the mentorship of one or more CCQ scientists during the summer, Research Assistants/Associates will contribute to CCQ research by joining an ongoing research project.

These are paid, temporary full-time positions based onsite at the foundation here in New York City. Applications are accepted from December 1st until mid-January for the upcoming summer.

As a member of the SCC team, the HPC Systems Engineer is responsible for the deployment, operation and maintenance of the Flatiron Institute’s Scientific computing infrastructure. The responsibilities include hardware monitoring and replacement for large scale HPC clusters with high-performance interconnects such as InfiniBand and Ethernet.

The Center for Computational Biology (CCB) of the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute is actively seeking enthusiastic, full-time post-doctoral Flatiron Research Fellows to join its Biophysical Modeling Group. The Biophysical Modeling group focuses on the modeling and simulation of complex systems that arise in biology and soft condensed matter physics. Areas of interest include the dynamics of complex and active materials, and aspects of collective behavior and self-organization in both natural systems (e.g., inside the cell) and synthetic ones. Ongoing projects focus on understanding the organization and dynamics of the nucleus, the structure and assembly of spindles, the positioning and transport of cellular organelles, and fluid-structure problems in biology. Applications will be reviewed beginning in Fall 2024 and considered on a rolling basis until the positions are filled.