Thursday, December 15, 2011

Research Programmer in Computer Science at Rice

Major technical challenges get in the way of developing novel cyber-physical systems (CPS). Overcoming these challenges can significantly accelerate the design process. A new NSF CPS project on Robot Design is building foundations and tools to achieve this goal for novel robotics applications. The project focuses on issues relating to modeling hybrid (continuous/discrete) systems and model validation. The project, which is a close collaboration between Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering at Rice University, Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M, and Halmstad University in Sweden, will develop and validate foundations, methods, and tools for the modeling and simulation of hybrid and cyber-physical systems.

The project has an opening a research programmer with Professor Taha at Rice University. The successful candidates will work closely a team of four professors and four PhD students working on various aspects of this project, contributing and coordinating the development of the Acumen modeling language for the purposes of this project.

Applicants for this position must have strong skills and interest in programming language design and theory; functional programming; and test-driven development.  Excellent communication and collaboration skills are required as the student will be expected to work as part of a large, international research team investigating modeling languages. Priority will be given to applicants who already hold a doctoral degree in Computer Science or Mechanical Engineering, but applicants with suitable skills and interests who hold a doctorate in Mathematics, Physics, or Electrical Engineering are also encouraged to apply. Desirable experience includes working interval and enclosure methods, exact real arithmetic, domain theory, operational semantics, formal verification, differential equations, hybrid/impulsive differential equations, and mechanical hardware design and control, especially in the context of robotics. Desirable skills include facility with Scala, Java, Haskell, OCaml, ML, Scheme, Mathematica, Maple, OpenGL, Matlab, Simulink, the Open Dynamics Engine (ODE), or other modeling and simulation tools.

The position is for one year, renewable to two years, and is subject to the availability of funding. The successful applicant will spend part of their time in Halmstad, Sweden (50%) as part of the collaboration and must be ready to start the position by May or June 2012.

The deadline for applications is January 15th, 2012. Application for this position should be sent directly to Professor Taha by email. The title of the email should be (without quotes) "Application for Robot Design Research Programmer Position". The application should consist of one, self-contained PDF attachment. The application should include 1) a brief cover letter including motivation for the application, 2) a CV, and 3) a list of names of references. It is also suggested that the application include online pointers to previous publications or software produced by the applicant.

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