Postdoctoral Fellow - Dietrich College - Decision Making Lab

Company: Carnegie Mellon University

Job Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Category: Psychology

Type: Full-Time

Interested applicants, please be sure to upload within your application: CV, Cover Letter expressing interest, 2 references for recommendation, and a published paper (optional).

Carnegie Mellon University is a private, global research university that challenges the curious and hardworking to deliver work that matters. Our extraordinary institution has distinctive areas of excellence and a culture marked by ambition and a deep, practical engagement with challenges facing society. We continue to produce talented alumni and draw faculty and staff eager to be a part of the university's creative, dedicated and close-knit community. We place emphasis on practical problem solving, interdisciplinary learning, a transformative spirit, and collaboration.

The Dynamic Decision-Making Laboratory (www.cmu.edu/ddmlab) at Carnegie Mellon University, has a new post-doctoral position available to start between May-August 2025. This is a full-time research position with full benefits, for one year with the possibility of renewal for one additional year conditional on research performance and availability of funds.

A new post-doctoral fellow will support the lab's projects on Human-AI Teaming or Behavioral Cybersecurity. Generally, the post-doctoral fellow must be technically capable in either of these two areas or both. The fellow must be ready to conduct research involving construction of research games or microworlds, conduct laboratory studies, and construct computational cognitive models including paradigms in Cognitive Science (Instance-Based Learning models) or AI (Reinforcement Learning).

The fellow will explore many issues of interest to cognitive science, computational cognitive modeling, decision science, and AI. For example, in the context of Behavioral Cybersecurity we investigate behavioral Game Theoretic algorithms of defense, and how those can/should be modified to account for human attacker's biases. To accomplish this goal, we study attacker's behavior and create cognitive computational models of the attacker's decisions. These models can serve to predict biases and measure cognitive biases to improve defense algorithms.

Core Responsibilities

The post-doctoral fellow will need to be familiar with experimental research and with cognitive computational modeling. The fellow will be involved in the design and implementation of interactive web-based experimental studies and the use of existent high-fidelity games or cyber-ranges in the case of behavioral cybersecurity (i.e., CyberVAN).

Development of computational models of individual and collective behavior, paying special attention to cognitive modeling methods in cognitive science such as cognitive architectures, Instance-Based Learning models and Reinforcement Learning.

Flexibility, excellence, and passion are vital qualities within CMU. Inclusion, collaboration and cultural sensitivity are valued proficiencies at CMU. Therefore, we are in search of a team member who is able to effectively interact with a varied population of internal and external partners at a high level of integrity. We are looking for someone who shares our values and who will support the mission of the university through their work.

Required qualifications:

• A Ph.D. (completed by start of employment) in cognitive science; human factors engineering, engineering or computer science with experience in behavioral science.
• A technical background is required regardless of the Ph.D. degree; for example, a Ph.D. in social psychology with no experience in engineering or computational approaches would not be acceptable.
• Experience with programming (Python, Java, Javascript, PhP, and others)
• Training in behavioral science research methods and statistical analyses.
• Experience with statistical software (preferably R, others acceptable).
• Experience with computational/cognitive modeling (e.g., reinforcement learning, ACT-R models, IBL models).
• Proven writing abilities through publications
• Excellent verbal communication skills.

Desired qualifications:

• Experience with client-server web programming and design.
• Experience working with interdisciplinary, collaborative teams, and managing research assistants.

Additional Information: Successful background check investigation may be required. Joining the CMU team opens the door to an array of exceptional benefits available to eligible employees.