Data Scientist II, Natural Language Processing (NLP) Specialist

ABOUT THE JOB

The ACLU seeks applicants for the full-time position of Data Scientist II, Natural Language Processing (NLP) Specialist in the Analytics Division of the Technology Department of the ACLU’s National office in New York, NY, San Francisco, CA, or Washington, DC. This is a hybrid role that has in-office requirements of two (2) days per week or eight (8) days per month. 

The ACLU Technology Department is a broad umbrella covering both the ACLU’s Analytics and its Product & Engineering teams, two robust and innovative divisions that power the work of the ACLU. The department provides trusted, dependable, and impactful analytics, engineering, as well as product management and product design expertise for the ACLU. In partnership with experts across the ACLU, the Technology Team delivers best-in-class solutions, services, and innovation that advance the ACLU mission and organizational priorities. The tech team strives to ensure the ACLU leads by example in the ethical use of technology by ensuring privacy and security standards are maintained, directional insights are used to inform programming and business strategy, best-in-class products are designed to get the ACLU message out into the world and grow the ACLU supporter base, as well as to help steward high standards for algorithmic fairness, accountability, and transparency.  

The Analytics division includes analysts, data scientists, survey experts, social scientists, and analytics engineers that support evidence-based decision making and bring quantitative insights on our issues to the courtroom and the public. 

This position is part of a collective bargaining unit. It is represented by ACLU Staff United (ASU).

WHAT YOU'LL DO 

Reporting to the Data Science Manager — Algorithmic Justice Specialist and collaborating closely with our DevOps Engineering Team, Product Manager for Discovery, and Algorithmic Justice Fellow, the Data Scientist II, NLP Specialist, will support development and evaluation work for high-priority, carefully scoped projects using NLP to support the ACLU’s mission. In this role, the NLP Specialist will be responsible for evaluating proposed uses of generative AI and non-generative natural language AI systems, providing recommendations on whether AI tooling is appropriate or ill-suited for various tasks, and when appropriate, contributing to the development and implementation of AI-based solutions to support the organization’s mission.  

YOUR DAY TO DAY

• Work with various teams and departments to evaluate proposed AI use cases for feasibility and alignment with ACLU values and requirements related to privacy, security, transparency, bias, and environmental impacts  
• Provide recommendations to department and organizational leaders on whether AI tooling is appropriate or ill-suited for various tasks and use cases 
• Develop recommendations and architecture plans for intentional, carefully crafted uses of NLP tooling, appropriately selecting generative or non-generative AI systems and related guardrails and monitoring based on the context and requirements of the use case 
• Contribute to the development and implementation of AI-based solutions when appropriate, collaborating with various departments to ensure successful design, deployment, and continuous evaluation of such systems 
• Contribute to the establishment of AI governance practices and standards in collaboration with colleagues across the organization 
• Contribute to the development of context-specific, high-quality benchmarks for language modelling systems tailored for civil rights and public interest organizations 
• Contribute to various other projects supporting the ACLU’s litigation and policy work by applying natural language processing methods to policy or regulatory text data  
• When relevant, collaborate with academic and civil society researchers to turn your learnings and insights into resources to benefit other pub