We are looking for a post-doctoral fellow to work with Dr. Justine Cassell in the Articulab at 
Carnegie Mellon University on an ongoing project developing and evaluating a virtual peer that 
interacts with children. The position will open immediately and is funded by the National Science 
Foundation and the Heinz Foundation. The postdoc will assist with the development and evaluation 
of Alex, a virtual peer who engages in a collaborative bridge-building task as a way to scaffold 
elementary school aged children's ability to code-switch between African American English and 
Mainstream American English depending on social context and their ability to engage in 
inquiry-based science talk in the classroom. There will be flexibility in shaping the job according
 to the specific interests and skills of the candidate. However, the main goals for the project 
currently are the improvement of Alex's dialogue and nonverbal behavior model through analysis of 
previously collected child-child data, and evaluation of the system in a classroom context.

The post-doctoral fellow's duties will include, but are not limited to, management and execution 
of research projects, analysis of data using methods from educational data mining and statistics, 
and participation in scientific publication. The postdoc will help with user testing in schools 
and other contexts, and with redesign, formative, and summative evaluation. The ideal candidate 
will have experience in multiple of these areas, and the ability to quickly learn new skills in 
these areas, and will be able to work well in a team of undergraduate and graduate students and 
staff in a fast-paced research environment. The candidate must also possess excellent communication
and inter-personal skills. The position will also include lab management duties such as overseeing 
research assistants, participant scheduling, and maintaining relationships with local schools.

Requirements:

The post-doctoral fellow will have a Ph.D. or equivalent degree in Learning Sciences, Linguistics, 
Computer Science, Education, Psychology, or related area. Ideally the postdoc should have a 
relevant background in linguistics or literacy, and strong computational skills. In any case, the 
successful candidate should have background in one or more of the following areas: computational 
linguistics, literacy studies, embodied conversational agents, human-computer interaction, learning
sciences or technologies, computer science, psychology, education. Experience with field-based 
educational research with elementary school aged children is desirable but not a strict requirement.
Excellent people skills are essential in order to interact with the local research team, and maintain 
relationships with school administrators, teachers, and longitudinal study participants.

If interested, please send a CV, a brief statement explaining the nature of your interest and your 
relevant experience, and the names and contact information for at least three references, to:

Dr. Amy Ogan
Post-doctoral Fellow
aeo@andrew.cmu.edu