[Revised advertisement]
Please forward to outstanding potential applicants.

Applications are required if possible by 14 March, though we may be able
to process late applications if selection has not gone too far.

Full details, including application instructions, are available here:

    http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cosy/rf07/

SUMMARY:
    Research Fellow (post-doc)
    Cognitive Robotics Project
    School of Computer Science
    Tasks: Planning under uncertainty with 3-D vision and object
        manipulation in a multi-capability robot
    Requirement: PhD or equivalent experience
    Start date: as soon as possible.
    Project started: Sept 2004
    Project ends: Aug 2008
    [But follow on projects are being planned]

Applications are invited for a Research Fellow to work on an EC-Funded
project: CoSy: Cognitive Systems for Cognitive Assistants. This is a
very ambitious multi-disciplinary project in which we are working to
reintegrate some of the efforts in different areas of AI and Cognitive
Science, notably cognitive architectures, planning, reasoning, robotics,
computer vision, natural language understanding, cognitive psychology
and machine learning.

This post is an addition to the existing CoSy team at Birmingham,
comprising Jeremy Wyatt and Aaron Sloman (Co-PIs), three
research-fellows (Nick Hawes, Somboon Hongeng, Michael Zillich) and a
PhD student (Marek Kopicki). Dr. Richard Dearden is also associated
with the project.

You will specifically be required to work on reasoning and learning
about sensing and perceptual processing in a robot able to manipulate
objects, with an emphasis on visual processing. The goal of the work
will be to develop new sequential decision making methods for choosing
sensing actions and making inferences about a scene when the robot has
to make decisions about where to look, and what visual processing to
perform. These methods are likely to involve planning (both symbolic and
probabilistic approaches are relevant), learning for sequential decision
making (e.g. reinforcement learning), and uncertain reasoning (e.g.
Bayesian reasoning for fusion of visual processing results).

Applicants should hold, or be working towards the achievement of a PhD
in Computer Science, AI, Cognitive Science, Engineering or related
subject OR have equivalent research experience in robotics/vision
research and linux expertise.

Research expertise in at least one area of planning or learning for
sequential decision making is essential. You will also have a track
record of strong publications in at least one of the following areas:

     * Uncertain reasoning and planning
     * Machine learning and statistical inference
     * Computer vision
     * Symbolic reasoning and planning

You will need excellent programming skills, in C/C++ or Java, together
with the ability to engineer software to very high standards of
reliability. You will work in a team of six researchers at Birmingham
and along with partner groups in six other universities, working on an
ambitious interdisciplinary EC-funded robotic project described at the
CoSy web sites: www.cognitivesystems.org ,
www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cosy/

You can find further particulars at
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cosy/rf07/ although it would be
much more informative to mail us for a full description of the problems.

Starting salary in the range of £32,795 to £39,160 a year (potential
progression on performance once in post to £44,074 a year), or in the
range of £24,402 to £31,840 (potential progression once in post to
£33,799 a year). This post is available from March 2007 until 28
February 2008 in the first instance, however it is normal, and expected,
that the post will be extended for the full duration of the project (31
August 2008).

Informal enquiries preferaby by email to:
Dr Jeremy Wyatt email: J.L.Wyatt@cs.bham.ac.uk
    tel:- +44 121 414 4788 or to
Prof Aaron Sloman email: A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk
    tel:- +44 121 414 4775 or to
Dr Richard Dearden, email: R.W.Dearden@cs.bham.ac.uk

Closing date: 14 March 2007
For application instructions please see
    http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cosy/rf07/

Reference: S43099

Formail Details from +44 121 415 9000 or www.hr.bham.ac.uk/jobs
HR, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT

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