Job Description
Department:
Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Pay Rate Type:
Hourly
Employee Type:
Job Summary:
Colby College seeks interested candidates for a Fellowship position at the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence (DavisAI). The fifth-year fellowship is a professional opportunity for a recent Colby graduate to expand their interdisciplinary AI leadership skills, further their professional development and continue to serve Colby and the broader community. The fellowship will benefit Colby students who have demonstrated a deep commitment to engaging through DavisAI in AI research and with the Colby community including students, faculty, alumni and administration. The fellowship program model is designed to impact campus culture, strengthen relationships, cultivate a sense of community, and maximize professional development opportunities by collaborating across the campus and with key partners across Maine, nationally and internationally. Fellows will forge new relationships across campus to grow student, faculty and administrators AI engagement and directly support the collaborative work being done across disciplines.
Essential Functions
To perform successfully in this position, an individual must be able to perform essential duties satisfactorily as well as possess education/experience, employ the knowledge, skills, and abilities as listed in representative fashion. Colby College actively supports the Americans with Disabilities Act and will consider reasonable accommodations to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the position. This listing of essential duties is not all-inclusive, but representative; other duties may be assigned.
Conduct independent research and establish pipelines for future projects:
Continue or begin their own research project possibly leading to publication
Design and pilot a structured pathway for students of all class years and disciplines to continuously engage with in AI research.
Lead AI education and community engagement:
Conduct listening tours with staff and faculty across all departments to benchmark community attitudes
Develop targeted workshops, resources, and departmental AI guides, building on DAI's current materials to ensure up to date information and tailored to specific applications
Refine the DavisAI institutional voice and provide thought leadership:
Conduct research on areas of community concern about AI, including environmental impact, cognitive impacts, data security and privacy
Draft well-informed institutional positions on AI for DavisAI and Colby College
Analyze and expand on DAI technical infrastructure:
Conduct research on areas of community concern about AI, including environmental impact, cognitive impacts, data security and privacy
Understand current infrastructure and refine the core, reliable AI toolset to lower the barrier for students, faculty and administrators to build and deploy their projects
Position Qualifications
Education and/or experience:
2026 graduate of Colby College
Strong proficiency Python for data processing/analysis
Familiarity working with APIs
Familiarity with machine learning workflows
Demonstrated experience with natural language processing techniques
Strong prompt engineering skills
Strong interpersonal, written and oral communication skills
Previous experience with DavisAI research and/or pedagogical transformation
Time management and organizational skills
Strong critical thinking and problem solving skills
Require minimal supervision and possess the ability to take initiative
Experience with Git, Docker, and SSH (for secure remote environments) is a plus
Physical/Mental Demands
The physical demands and work environment characteristics described herein are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform essential functions of this position and/or may be encountered while performing essential functions. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
To successfully perform the essential functions of this position, an employee must be able to maintain appropriate confidentiality with regard to employee data, documents, issues, etc., and respect privacy needs of employees and past employees with regard to the same.
The ability to comply with highly inflexible deadlines is required to successfully perform the essential functions of this position; there will be multiple occurrences of sudden, urgent task completion required.
There may be occurrences of employees, past employees, members of the general public, and others who express opinions, may exhibit strong emotions, which will require the employee to interact professionally, diplomatically, and appropriately in such situations.
While performing the essential duties of this position, an employee would frequently be required to move around the office space as well as within hallways, meeting rooms, and other parts of the campus facilities.
There may be multiple/daily instances of prolonged personal computer use which would include keyboard and/or mouse usage as well as viewing a computer monitor.
An employee must frequently lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 35 pounds to perform essential position functions.
Specific vision abilities required by this position include close vision, distance vision, and ability to adjust focus.
The overall work environment requires the mental ability to shift focus quickly due to interruptions; an employee must be able to mentally track multiple projects and tasks as well.
The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate; however, there may be unexpected instances of somewhat loud sounds.
To Apply:
Interested candidates should apply electronically by clicking the “Apply Now” button on the Colby College website. Please upload a cover letter and resume to your application.
