"Postdoctoral Research Associate, Electrical and Computer Engineering"

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Company: The University of Arizona

Job Location: Tucson, 85724

Category: Electrical Engineering

Type: Full-Time

Posting Number: req24051

Department: Electrical and Computer Engr

Location: Main Campus

Address: 1230 E. Speedway Blvd., Tucson, AZ 85721 USA

Position Highlights

The Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at the University of Arizona is seeking a qualified and highly motivated Postdoctoral Research Associate to work with Dr. Ehsan Azimi.

We invite qualified candidates to join our group and participate in cutting-edge research. The chosen candidate will advance research at the intersection of robotics, control & prototyping, and AI/ML. The Postdoc will design, implement, and evaluate robotic systems - including real-time control stacks - and develop learning-enabled perception, planning, and vision-language model (VLM) pipelines. The role includes disseminating results via publications, patents, demos, and grants, in addition to mentoring students and contributing to course modules/workshops in robotics and related topics.

Outstanding UA benefits include health, dental, vision, and life insurance; paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays; UA/ASU/NAU tuition reduction for the employee and qualified family members; access to UA recreation and cultural activities; and more!

The University of Arizona has been recognized for our innovative work-life programs. For more information about working at the University of Arizona and relocations services, please click here.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Lead, design, build and test cycles for robotic platforms and experimental rigs; develop real-time control (e.g., model-based, optimal, learning-augmented control), perception, and planning modules; run structured experiments and benchmarking.
• Architect high-quality research codebases in C++/Python/C# (e.g., ROS/ROS 2, RT frameworks, Unity/Unreal integration as needed); implement data pipelines, simulation, and CI/testing; maintain reproductible artifacts and documentation.
• Mentor undergraduate and graduate students; develop short course modules and/or run workshops in Robotics/AI/Control; support inclusive team culture and lab best practices.
• Lead and co-author journal/conference papers; prepare manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals; create compelling presentations/demos and contribute to IP (invention disclosures and patents); present research at national and international conferences.
• Contribute to proposal development and grant writing (including preliminary data, methods, budgets text); prepare progress reports, and coordination with internal/external collaborators; interface with sponsors where applicable.
• Foster collaborations within the Department, with other units across the University, and with team members at other institutes.
• Participate and contribute to meetings with industry, academia and sponsors.
• Additional duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strong analysis skills, research, and technical writing skills.
• Ability to communicate professionally in a clear, concise manner orally and in writing.
• Knowledge of prototyping, specifically control (PID, MPC, optimal/robust, learning-augmented); perception & planning; sensor fusion; calibration; system identification.
• Programming skills, including C++, Python, C#; ROS/ROS 2; Git; Linux; build systems (CMake); real-time/latency-aware coding; simulation (Gazebo/Isaac/Unity/Unreal as applicable).
• Knowledge of experimental design, statistics, ablation studies, replicable pipelines, technical writing.
• Ability to create clear presentations and use strong interpersonal skills with a collaborative mindset; effective mentoring.

Minimum Qualifications

• PhD in Robotics, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, or closely related field.
• Must have PhD conferred upon hire.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience integrating hardware + software for robots (arms, mobile, mechatronics) and real-time control.
• Experience in computer vision, multimodal perception, or foundation models (VLMs/LLMs) applied to robotics.
• Track record of patent contributions and/or technology transfer.
• Experience preparing grants (NSF/NIH/DoD/industry) and coordinating collaborative deliverables.
• Prior experience mentoring/teaching, curriculum or workshop development.
• Experience with safety standards for robotics labs and human-robot interaction studies.
• Experience with CUDA/accelerators; optimization; SLAM; tactile/force control; AR/XR interfaces; Unity/C# for robotics visualization; DevOps/containers.
• Experience with AI/ML: Deep learning for vision/perception; VLMs and LLM tooling; dataset curation; evaluation/benchmarks; basic MLOps.

FLSA: Exempt

Full Time/Part Time: Full Time

Number of Hours Worked per Week: 40

Job FTE: 1.00

Work Calendar: Fiscal

Job Category: Research

Benefits Eligible: Yes - Full Benefits

Rate of Pay: NIH salary guidelines-Depends on Experience

Compensation Type: salary at 1.0 full-time equivalency (FTE)

Type of criminal background check required: Name-based criminal background check (non-security sensitive)

Number of Vacancies: 1

Contact Information for Candidates

Ehsan Azimi

eazimi@arizona.edu

Open Until Filled: Yes

Documents Needed to Apply: Curriculum Vitae (CV) and Cover Letter