PREP0004317 Software Engineer

PREP Research Associate

Opportunity No.: PREP0004317

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.

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Software Engineer

Project Description:

We are seeking a senior undergraduate or graduate student with strong software engineering skills to support the Guardians of Forensic Evidence Initiative—an effort to strengthen the scientific reliability of AI-based deepfake detection systems used in forensic and judicial contexts. This role emphasizes AI related software development, evaluation pipeline implementation, AI system benchmarking infrastructure, and web platform development. The selected candidate will contribute directly to the development of the Deepfake Challenge Kit, including dataset management systems, scoring packages, and a secure evaluation website with user authentication and leaderboard functionality.

Key Responsibilities: 

• Deepfake and Synthetic Data Generation and Automated Benchmarking Dataset Pipeline Development, including but not limited to: developing automated or semi-automated state-of-the-art deepfake image/audio generation pipelines; implementing metadata handling and dataset validation tools; building infrastructure for deepfake media benchmarking; etc.
• Deepfake Analytic AI System Implementation: Implement baseline deepfake detection algorithms; design modular, well-documented, and maintainable codebases; deploy deepfake detection tools on Linux servers and GPU clusters; ensure reproducibility and performance optimization; maintain cross-platform compatibility (Linux, macOS, Windows); implement containerized solutions (Docker-based workflows) as needed.
• Scoring Package & Evaluation Infrastructure: Implement evaluation metrics (ROC curves, AUC, confusion matrices, robustness analysis); develop reproducible evaluation pipelines; conduct quantitative performance analysis across different data subsets.

Required Qualifications: 

• Senior undergraduate or graduate student in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field
• Strong proficiency in Python to support timely project delivery
• Experience working in a Linux environment and with shell scripting (Bash) is required
• Background in media (audio, image, or video) processing and analysis
• Ability to work independently as well as in collaborative research environments

Desired Qualifications: 

• U.S. Citizen Preferred
• GPU programming or AI model development experience
• Experience with web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
• Experience developing backend services (Flask, Django, FastAPI, Node.js, etc.)
• Previous experience with generative AI tools, including deepfake technologies and large language models
• Experience in cross-platform software development (Linux, macOS, Windows)
• Experience or interest in machine learning and AI system testing and evaluation
• Experience with database management (e.g., PostgreSQL)
• Experience with Jupyter Notebooks, R, Shiny, and interactive data visualization

Other Details:

• Part-time: the participant is expected to work 20 hours during the semester and 40 hours a week during the Summer
• Location: 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. Haiying Guan (haiying.guan@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.