Research Fellow (Postdoctoral)

Post Status: Specific Purpose Contract – Full Time

Location: Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

Salary:

Commensurate with experience and achievement on the SFI Team Member Budget Scale (October 2024) Post Doctoral Researcher Level 2A/B (range of €44,847-€55,740)

Reports to: Prof. Vinny Cahill & Prof. Ivana Dusparic

Hours of Work: 39 hours per week

Closing Date: 17:00 (BST) on Monday 16^th of September 2024. Late applications will be considered if the post remains unfilled.

Post Summary

We are seeking to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to investigate the use of deep reinforcement learning (RL) and swarm intelligence techniques to optimize urban and highway traffic in the presence of autonomous and conventional vehicles within the ClearWay project funded by Science Foundation Ireland.

The increasing availability of sensor data, including from connected and autonomous vehicles, will make it possible to capture the detailed state of a road network in real time. Along with the ability to exercise an increasing level of control over individual vehicles either indirectly, e.g., via urban traffic control or driver guidance systems, or directly, in the case of (semi-)autonomous vehicles, this offers the opportunity to deploy new approaches to traffic management with the explicit goal of optimizing end-to-end travel-time reliability.

Extending the state of the art in deep RL and swarm intelligence, ClearWay will design algorithms for optimization of urban and highway traffic as a function of the increasing levels of sensor data and increasing levels of control over individual vehicles available. Such algorithms will need to take account of the scale, complexity, and inherent non-stationarity of traffic systems, while adapting to the many transient perturbations that effect traffic flow. The focus is on decentralized and multi-agent algorithms that allow traffic controllers to cooperate towards system-wide optimal solutions. The successful candidate is expected to make contributions to the state of the art in deep RL applied to cyber-physical systems in areas such as multi-agent cooperation, lifelong learning, transfer learning, and explainability.

The position will be based in the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland under the direction of Prof. Vinny Cahill and Prof. Ivana Dusparic. For informal inquiries please contact vinny.cahill@tcd.ie / ivana.dusparic@tcd.ie.

Required qualifications

The successful candidate must have a PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electronic Engineering, or a closely related field. An established track record of publication in leading journals/conferences on topics relevant to ClearWay is also essential.

Application Procedure

Please send applications by email to vinny.cahill@tcd.ie and ivana.dusparic@tcd.ie quoting “ClearWay Fellowship” in the subject line and containing three PDF files as follows:

• (1) a cover letter,
• (2) a curriculum vitae (giving full details of qualifications and experience, including transcripts of degrees, a description of your contribution to relevant project work, identification of your three most-significant publications relevant to the ClearWay project, and the names and contact details of two referees), and
• (3) a 1-2 page research proposal outlining how you might address the research goals of ClearWay and how this extends the state of the art.

Please do not provide other documents, documents in other formats, or include any substantive information in the body of your email.

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