Research Associate 1 - Structures and Artificial Intelligence Lab

Department: Civil Engineering Salary: Commensurate with Experience/Education

Description:

Works under the direction of a faculty member. Provides expertise in the design, operation and analysis of experiments or research projects in areas such as chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics, optometry, all fields of engineering, etc. May prepare samples for testing. Performs advanced testing procedures and performs analyses of data. Prepares reports. Makes uses of a variety of specialized equipment typical within area of specialization. May contribute to grant proposal development.

1. Ensures experiments or research efforts are performed according to specifications.

2. May make recommendations to changes in procedures, processes, or experimental design.

3. May prepare and/or edit research papers, proposals and reports.

4. Possesses, understands, and applies a comprehensive knowledge that crosses fields of specialization. Understands and uses effective management techniques.

5. Designs, operates and analyzes large experiments or research projects.

6. May serve as liaison with other areas of specialization to obtain support or technical expertise for projects.

7. Recommends major changes in procedures or processes for research investigations. May personally conduct important and/or technically complex investigations.

8. Operates with considerable latitude for unreviewed action.

9. Provides direction and supervision of graduate or undergraduate research assistants involved in experiments or research.

Join a team building advanced computer vision systems that model and analyze real-world infrastructure through advances in 3D vision and AI. Our mission is to transform how physical infrastructure environments are documented, monitored, and maintained. You'll contribute to research and development efforts focused on creating accurate digital twins, improving anomaly detection models, and integrating visual data with spatial sensors like RGBD and LiDAR.

This role offers the opportunity to work across the full stack of data collection, model training, evaluation, software engineering, and deployment. The research engineer reports to Dr. Vedhus Hoskere in the College of Engineering/Civil and Environmental Engineering who may also be contacted for questions regarding the position (...)

Initial appointments will be for one year with the possibility of yearly renewal subject to funding availability.

Responsibilities

Design and implement deep learning architectures, AI agent pipelines, and computer vision algorithms to achieve project goals (33%)

Conduct full stack development efforts including UI/UX, code maintenance, and deployment pipelines (33%)

Evaluate and refine AI models using annotated data and real-world image datasets (10%)

Curate multimodal real and synthetic datasets, including photogrammetry, LiDAR, and depth cameras, to build scalable analysis pipelines (10%)

Conduct data collection for validation of developed approaches (may involve occasional travel) (2%)

Collaborate with graduate and undergraduate student researchers (5%)

Perform other duties as assigned (7%)

Preferred Qualifications

Bachelor's degree (or equivalent experience) in computer science, electrical engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, data science, artificial intelligence, or a related field

Strong Python programming skills

5 years practical software engineering experience

Practical experience with computer vision, ML, or 3D scene understanding

Ability to work collaboratively across technical teams

US Citizen or Permanent Resident

Master's degree in computer science, electrical engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, data science, artificial intelligence, or a related field

Experience with photogrammetry, LiDAR alignment, or large-scale 3D data, and deep learning-based 3D vision and graphics

Familiarity with image annotation tools and dataset iteration workflows

Contributions to open-source, research publications, or production ML systems

Experience will be considered in lieu of education.

MQ: Ph.D. Degree with 1 year of experience.

All positions at the University of Houston-System are security sensitive and will require a criminal history check.

The University of Houston System and its universities are Equal Opportunity Institutions. Everyone is encouraged to apply.