diff --git a/app/local.env b/app/local.env
index f4bd6e74..011b0148 100644
--- a/app/local.env
+++ b/app/local.env
@@ -70,4 +70,8 @@ AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1
 # DST app configuration
 ###########################
 
-EMBEDDING_MODEL=/app/models/multi-qa-mpnet-base-dot-v1
\ No newline at end of file
+# Default chat engine
+# CHAT_ENGINE=guru-snap
+
+# Path to embedding model used for vector database
+EMBEDDING_MODEL=/app/models/multi-qa-mpnet-base-cos-v1
diff --git a/app/src/app_config.py b/app/src/app_config.py
index e6a75da7..f8bf8be5 100644
--- a/app/src/app_config.py
+++ b/app/src/app_config.py
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ class AppConfig(PydanticBaseEnvConfig):
     # To customize these values in deployed environments, set
     # them in infra/app/app-config/env-config/environment-variables.tf
 
-    embedding_model: str = "multi-qa-mpnet-base-dot-v1"
+    embedding_model: str = "multi-qa-mpnet-base-cos-v1"
     global_password: str | None = None
     host: str = "127.0.0.1"
     port: int = 8080
diff --git a/app/src/retrieve.py b/app/src/retrieve.py
index 33777edb..905760ba 100644
--- a/app/src/retrieve.py
+++ b/app/src/retrieve.py
@@ -38,6 +38,9 @@ def retrieve_with_scores(
         ).all()
 
         for chunk, score in chunks_with_scores:
-            logger.info(f"Retrieved: {chunk.document.name!r} with score {score}")
+            # Confirmed that the `max_inner_product` method returns the same score as using sentence_transformers.util.dot_score
+            # used in code at https://huggingface.co/sentence-transformers/multi-qa-mpnet-base-cos-v1
+            logger.info(f"Retrieved: {chunk.document.name!r} with score {-score}")
 
-        return [ChunkWithScore(chunk, score) for chunk, score in chunks_with_scores]
+        # Scores from the DB query are negated, presumably to reverse the default sort order
+        return [ChunkWithScore(chunk, -score) for chunk, score in chunks_with_scores]
diff --git a/app/src/util/embedding_models.py b/app/src/util/embedding_models.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..10ada0d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/app/src/util/embedding_models.py
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+from sentence_transformers import SentenceTransformer, util
+
+
+def test_sentence_transformer(embedding_model: str) -> None:
+    """
+    Exercises specified embedding model and calculates scores from the embedding vectors.
+    The embedding models will be downloaded automatically to ~/.cache/huggingface/hub, if it does not already exist.
+    Used the scores to confirm/compare against those of pgvector's max_inner_product.
+    """
+    transformer = SentenceTransformer(embedding_model)
+    # transformer.save(f"sentence_transformers/{embedding_model}")
+    text = "Curiosity inspires creative, innovative communities worldwide."
+    embedding = transformer.encode(text)
+    print("=== ", embedding_model, len(embedding))
+
+    for query in [
+        text,
+        "How does curiosity inspire communities?",
+        "What's the best pet?",
+        "What's the meaning of life?",
+    ]:
+        query_embedding = transformer.encode(query)
+        # Code adapted from https://huggingface.co/sentence-transformers/multi-qa-mpnet-base-cos-v1
+        score = util.dot_score(embedding, query_embedding)
+        print("Score:", score.item(), "for:", query)
+
+
+# To run: python -m src.util.embedding_models
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    embedding_models = ["multi-qa-mpnet-base-cos-v1", "multi-qa-mpnet-base-dot-v1"]
+    for model in embedding_models:
+        print(model)
+        test_sentence_transformer(model)
diff --git a/app/tests/src/test_retrieve.py b/app/tests/src/test_retrieve.py
index d7613d81..284cf1d7 100644
--- a/app/tests/src/test_retrieve.py
+++ b/app/tests/src/test_retrieve.py
@@ -79,6 +79,6 @@ def test_retrieve_with_scores(app_config, db_session, enable_factory_create):
 
     assert len(results) == 2
     assert results[0].chunk == short_chunk
-    assert results[0].score == -0.7071067690849304
+    assert results[0].score == 0.7071067690849304
     assert results[1].chunk == medium_chunk
-    assert results[1].score == -0.25881901383399963
+    assert results[1].score == 0.25881901383399963
diff --git a/docs/app/getting-started.md b/docs/app/getting-started.md
index df0ca291..df31843a 100644
--- a/docs/app/getting-started.md
+++ b/docs/app/getting-started.md
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ A very simple [docker-compose.yml](/docker-compose.yml) has been included to sup
 **Note:** Run everything from within the `/app` folder:
 
 1. Set up an (empty) local secrets file: `touch .env` and copy the provided example Docker override: `cp ../docker-compose.override.yml.example ../docker-compose.override.yml`
-2. Download the `multi-qa-mpnet-base-dot-v1` model into the `models` directory: `git clone https://huggingface.co/sentence-transformers/multi-qa-mpnet-base-dot-v1 models/multi-qa-mpnet-base-dot-v1`
+2. Download the embedding model into the `models` directory: `git clone https://huggingface.co/sentence-transformers/multi-qa-mpnet-base-cos-v1 models/multi-qa-mpnet-base-cos-v1`
 3. Run `make init start` to build the image and start the container.
 4. Navigate to `localhost:8000/chat` to access the Chainlit UI.
 5. Run `make run-logs` to see the logs of the running application container