PREP0003711 Content Tracking Researcher

PREP Research Associate

Opportunity No.: PREP0003711

This position is part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Professional Research Experience (PREP) program. NIST recognizes that its research staff may wish to collaborate with researchers at academic institutions on specific projects of mutual interest, and thus requires that such institutions must be the recipient of a PREP award. The PREP program requires staff from a wide range of backgrounds to work on scientific research in many areas. Employees in this position will perform technical work that underpins the scientific research of the collaboration.

APPLY ONLINE HERE

Content Tracking Researcher

Project Description:

Leading NIST efforts to assess, advance, and potentially standardize methods for tracking content provenance (e.g., watermarking and metadata recording).

Key Responsibilities: 

• Surveying existing content provenance tracking methods
• Designing or contributing to methods and projects that assess the extent to which provenance tracking methods meet various potential objectives
• Identifying technical or usability flaws in existing methods and proposing solutions
• Contributing to existing standardization projects on content provenance tracking and/or identifying opportunities for new projects

Desired Qualifications: 

• A bachelor's degree or higher
• Familiarity with the workings of modern generative AI systems
• Detailed knowledge of one or more technical methods for adding watermarks to or associating metadata with content to record the provenance of the content (e.g., SynthID, C2PA, or similar)
• Ability to quickly identify and review relevant computer science research papers and extract relevant conclusions
• Strong written communication skills

Other Details:

• Full-time: the participant is expected to work 40 hours a week
• Location: Hybrid - the participant will work at the NIST Gaithersburg Campus and telework.
• Duration: this is expected to be a one-year position. Extensions are sometimes granted depending on the availability of funds.
• For questions related to the research project or the nature of the work in this position, please contact Dr. Jesse Dunietz (jesse.dunietz@nist.gov). For questions related to the online application or NIST PREP more generally, please contact msu-nistprep@morgan.edu.

Privacy Act Statement

Authority: 15 U.S.C. § 278g-1(e)(1) and (e)(3) and 15 U.S.C. § 272(b) and (c)

Purpose: The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) hosts the Professional Research Experience Program (PREP) which is designed to provide valuable laboratory experience and financial assistance to undergraduates, post-bachelor’s degree holders, graduate students, master’s degree holders, postdocs, and faculty.

PREP is a 5-year cooperative agreement between NIST laboratories and participating PREP Universities to establish a collaborative research relationship between NIST and U.S. institutions of higher education in the following disciplines including (but may not be limited to) biochemistry, biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, engineering, electronics, materials science, mathematics, nanoscale science, neutron science, physical science, physics, and statistics. This collection of information is needed to facilitate the administrative functions of the PREP Program.

Routine Uses: NIST will use the information collected to perform the requisite reviews of the applications to determine eligibility, and to meet programmatic requirements. Disclosure of this information is also subject to all the published routine uses as identified in the Privacy Act System of Records Notices: NIST-1: NIST Associates.

Disclosure: Furnishing this information is voluntary. When you submit the form, you are indicating your voluntary consent for NIST to use the information you submit for the purpose stated.