RFQ: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) Technical Research Advisor for WFI and Economic Empowerment
Position Overview
Position Summary
Women's World Banking is seeking qualified technical advisors to support the organization's growing portfolio of AI initiatives at the intersection of responsible, safe, and fair AI, financial inclusion, gender equity, and women's health. While specific projects may vary, they generally span a suite of AI-powered efforts designed to advance the economic empowerment and health of low-income women and women micro-entrepreneurs. These include, but are not limited to: fair credit and loan recommendation models that identify and mitigate gender and income bias in lending decisions; agentic AI systems that help policymakers and regulators design better, evidence-based financial inclusion policies for women; and fairness-aware recommender systems tailored to the needs of financially excluded populations, ensuring financial products and services reach those who need them most. We are hiring technical advisors, including research scientists, ML engineers, postdoctoral researchers, and academics, who can contribute hands-on to the AI and machine learning dimensions of these projects, spanning model development, fairness auditing, LLM and agentic AI integration, and research dissemination. Selected advisors will be placed on retainer with Women's World Banking and engaged across one or more initiatives based on their expertise and the needs of the portfolio.
Roles and Responsibilities
- Fair and safe AI/ML model design and development: Design and build safe and fairness-aware ML models for credit, loan eligibility and health related products recommendations. Apply bias detection and mitigation techniques. Implement explainability methods appropriate for both institutional and regulatory audiences.
- Agentic AI and LLM integration: Build and deploy agentic AI components for automated financial guidance and policy drafting. Develop and fine-tune LLM-based pipelines for natural language policy recommendation outputs. Identify and mitigate risks of agentic systems operating in high-stakes financial contexts.
- Inclusion-sensitive recommender systems: Design, build, and evaluate recommender systems that explicitly account for financial exclusion, gender, and income disparities. Ensure model outputs prioritize reach to underserved and marginalized populations rather than optimizing solely for engagement or profit.
- Fairness auditing, bias mitigation, and safety design: Conduct ongoing fairness audits of model outputs using gender-disaggregated data. Identify and address intersectional disparities across gender, income, geography, and other protected attributes. Develop audit and safety frameworks and reporting standards suitable for grant and regulatory reporting.
- Policy translation and regulatory engagement: Translate model outputs into actionable policy briefs and recommendations for central banks, regulatory bodies, and government ministries.
- Research, publication, and grant support: Lead and contribute to peer-reviewed publications and conference submissions in AI fairness, ethics, safety, and financial inclusion. Support the preparation of grant applications to funders and allow Women's World Banking to name them as technical advisors where appropriate.
Required Qualifications
- Graduate degree (Master's or PhD) in Data Science, Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or a closely related field.
- Minimum 7 years of relevant professional experience in machine learning, deep learning, and AI systems research and implementation, or equivalent experience in academic research settings including PhD and postdoctoral work.
- Demonstrated experience working on algorithmic fairness, AI ethics, bias detection and mitigation, and AI safety.
- Hands-on experience with agentic AI frameworks and/or large language models (LLMs) in applied research or production settings.
- Peer-reviewed publications or accepted papers at recognized academic or industry conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, ACL, or equivalent) in areas of fairness, AI ethics, ML, or related fields.
- Demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences and collaborate effectively across diverse teams and geographies.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with data governance, privacy-preserving ML (e.g., federated learning, differential privacy), or ethical data collection in low-resource settings.
- Experience in leading open-source AI/ML projects.
How to Apply
Applications must be received no later than June 26, 2026, at midnight GMT.
- Cover letter: Briefly describing your similar projects and relevant research experience.
- CV/Resume: Include your full academic and professional background.
- Publications list: Provide a list of relevant peer-reviewed publications, conference papers, or a link to your Google Scholar profile.
- Relevant projects or research experience: Demonstrate prior experience in comparable engagements.
- References: Please provide at least two references from clients, partners, or peers with direct knowledge of your work in comparable engagements.
- Cost structure: Please share your expected daily remuneration in USD.
Applicants may submit their question(s) in writing until June 18, 2026, to mm@womensworldbanking.org. Please include in the e-mail subject line “Questions: AI Advisory Researcher/Engineer”.
This RFQ does not guarantee or commit Women’s World Banking to proceeding with the above-described work. Due to the overwhelming responses, not all candidates will be contacted.
Women’s World Banking is an equal opportunity employer for all regardless of race, color, citizenship, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, veteran or reservist status or any other category protected by federal, state or local law.
Women’s World Banking will be unable to contract with any individual who is a US citizen or resident without an LLC or LP or similar structure.
About Women's World Banking
We believe in being a force for the greater good, devoted to accelerating and growing the financial inclusion of women. With rapidly changing markets, influenced by technology and social behavioral expectations, we are embarking on a new chapter to transform the way we design and implement solutions.
For over 40 years, Women’s World Banking has partnered with financial institutions, showing them the benefit of investing in women as customers. We equip these institutions with in-depth research and data driven insights to develop financial products and educational programs. While our clients are financial service providers, our mission is to engage consumers – women who are marginalized by financial systems.
Women’s World Banking and WWB Asset Management is an equal employment opportunity for all regardless of race, color, citizenship, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, veteran or reservist status or any other category protected by federal, state or local law.
