Postdoctoral Research Associate — AI-Driven Reactive Robotics for Radioisotope Production
$71,900–$85,000 year
On-siteUpton, New York, United States
Job Summary
Design and build a dual-system robotic architecture integrating a frontier vision-language model for task planning with a fast learned controller for reactive fine-motor manipulation. Develop the control layer using approaches such as force-feedback MPC or latent world models, and construct a 3D perception stack for fluid-state estimation through transparent glassware. Validate systems on a cold bench before active material use, then publish results in peer-reviewed venues and present at conferences. This two-year appointment sits at the intersection of isotope production and frontier machine learning, offering wide latitude to shape research direction within an interdisciplinary community spanning robotics, radiochemistry, and computing.
Required Qualifications
- Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, physics, mathematics, statistics/data science, or a closely related technical field
- Backgrounds in robotics, controls, or machine learning
- Strong programming skills in Python
- Hands-on experience with modern ML frameworks (e.g. PyTorch)
- Hands-on problem-solving skills
- Clear, concise written and verbal communication
- Demonstrated record of peer-reviewed publication
- Ability to work independently and drive an open-ended, high-risk/high-reward research agenda
- Experience in one or more of: robotic manipulation, reinforcement learning, imitation learning, world models, model-predictive/optimal control, or continuous-time dynamical systems
- Demonstrated record of peer-reviewed publication, ideally as a lead (first or primary) author
- Experience with collaborative robot arms (e.g. UFactory xArm) and force/torque sensing
- Experience with vision-language(-action) models, diffusion/flow-matching policies, or JEPA-style latent representations
- Familiarity with 3D vision and pretrained visual encoders (e.g. DINOv2, V-JEPA)
- Interest in or exposure to laboratory automation, chemistry workflows, or radiochemistry
- Track record of conference presentation
- Applicable radiological worker training
- Ability to obtain and maintain a DOE Uncleared Personal Identity Verification (UPIV) credential
- Ability to produce a REAL-ID or REAL-ID compliant documentation
Desired Qualifications
- Master's degree preferred
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