Chemical Defense Researcher

What You'll Do8

• Write difficult single-turn prompts in your specialty, tagging each as benign, dual-use, or adversarial.
• Review model answers against a defined policy standard and decide if each answer was handled correctly.
• Draft reference answers that show what a correct response should include.
• Explain the technical reasoning behind each reference answer so a non-specialist can follow it.
• Identify borderline cases where a model should answer in full and where it must refuse.
• Document your rationale for every judgment in clear written form.
• Work through sustained periods of reading and writing about misuse scenarios in your field.
• Pause or step away without penalty when needed, as briefed in advance.

Requirements11

• Experience working chemical threats from the defensive side in an institutional setting.
• Background in one or more areas: countermeasures, protection, detection, or verification.
• Familiarity with toxicology of chemical warfare agents or medical countermeasure development.
• Knowledge of decontamination, protection, or detection research for chemical threats.
• CWC-related experience such as verification, destruction, or designated laboratory analysis.
• Ability to assess consequence and medical management of chemical exposure.
• Red-teaming experience preferred.
• Strong technical writing, published research, or expert witness work.
• Able to write rationales that non-specialists understand.
• Must not draw on classified or export-controlled information, or material under NDA or prepublication review.
• If you hold such obligations, disclose them so the team can scope the work accordingly.

Who Should Apply

The right candidate has worked chemical threats from the defensive side at an institution such as USAMRICD, DoD, CDC, or an allied national institute. You can judge whether a question about agent properties supports a treatment protocol or a threat assessment, and you can write that judgment for a non-specialist. This role is less suited to general chemists without defense, toxicology, or CWC experience, or to anyone expecting lab work instead of prompt writing and model evaluation. Applicants often score low when they submit no writing sample or link to published research, or when they cannot show red-teaming or policy-standard evaluation experience. Another common rejection reason is failing to disclose NDA, prepublication, or export-control obligations upfront.

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