Charles River Analytics brings foundational research to life, creating solutions and technology to tackle the world’s most challenging problems. Our scientists and engineers work together to mature our research results into viable, deployable products for the government and private sector.  Our extensive research, development, and deployment spans across many disciplines, such as AI, cyber security, robotics, cognitive science, and human-centered computing. We are a 100% employee-owned company, encouraging participation, innovation, and responsibility from our entire staff. At Charles River, we take great pride in our success in attracting and retaining the most talented and creative problem-solvers in our field. 

We have an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic computational linguist with a strong interest and research experience in natural language processing (NLP) to work on applied NLP research solving real operational problems for the US Government and commercial customers.

Example projects you may work on include:

• Developing information extraction tools for extracting key information from academic papers or system descriptions
• Developing systems that extract key information from news stories or press releases written in several different languages
• Developing a system that uses a functional grammar to generate draft reports from semantic representations
• Developing tools to detect bias and subjectivity in written communications

You will work on parsing, understanding, and generating natural language using a variety of technologies, such as machine learning, knowledge representation, semantic technologies, and advanced visualizations to support decision-making. You will design and build knowledge structures such as grammars and semantic representations that support specific applications. You will work in small project-oriented research groups led by a Principal Investigator and supported by other scientists and software engineers. You will perform scientific research and rapid prototyping. You will also have the opportunity to contribute to published research. At Charles River Analytics, we foster an environment where scientists are free to pursue their own research interests as well as working in highly collaborative teams.

 Major Responsibilities/Activities:  

• Design and implement grammars, semantic representations, and lexicons
• Design and implement software prototypes and tools
• Communicate effectively with supervisor and other team members
• Contribute to reports and papers describing your research
• Formulate new ideas and contribute to methods for new research projects

 What you need:  

• Master's degree in Computer Science or Computational Linguistics with emphasis on applied natural language processing
• Experience in applied NLP research, including machine learning, advanced grammars, and semantics
• Industry experience working for a DoD contracting corporation 
• Strong interest in, and aptitude for, software development, including programming skills in Python, Java, or other object-oriented programming languages (code samples may be requested)
• Candidates should have demonstrated capability to work independently as well as effectively within a team environment
• Ability to communicate effectively in written and oral form (writing samples may be requested)
• This position requires enthusiasm and energy coupled with the ability to adapt under pressure
• Candidates must be able to take direction and take initiative, and the knowledge of when to apply each
• US Citizenship is required for this position

 Our ideal candidate has:

• Experience with NLP tasks, such as named entity extraction, named entity resolution, relationship extraction, and natural language generation
• Experience working with large natural language grammars
• Experience with NLP technologies, open source tools, implementations of grammar and semantic formalisms, machine learning, and/or probabilistic reasoning
• Experience with software development processes, projects, and teams
• Fluency in, or experience processing, languages other than English

Why CRA?

Charles River Analytics is a 100% employee-owned company that thrives on collaboration and values each employee owner. We offer competitive compensation plus bonuses, profit-sharing, and an attractive benefits package. Our benefits include 100% employer-paid medical and dental insurance as well as vision, life, and disability insurance; paid maternity/paternity leave; tuition reimbursement; monthly gym allowance; free parking; generous paid time off; and a casual environment. We are also accessible by public transportation. We offer a hybrid onsite/remote schedule with tremendous flexibility. At Charles River, we truly value work-life balance.