"Research Associate"

The Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering (FABE), The Ohio State University invites applications for a Research Associate position to assist research activities at Dr. Peter Ling's laboratory. The position is located on Wooster, OH. This position will be a 6 month temporary position. The successful candidates will be a member of a multidisciplinary research team composed of engineers, horticulturalists, plant pathologists, and support staff of the departments.

The primary responsibility is to advance application technology research in controlled environment agriculture (CEA) by applying artificial intelligence, computer vision, and mechatronics for hyperspectral plant monitoring. The Research Associate will contribute to developing AI-enabled systems for plant health assessment, disease detection, and automated greenhouse management.

Major duties include:

• Design and implement spectral sensing pipelines for crop monitoring, plant stress detection, and disease identification in greenhouse environments.
• Apply machine learning to analyze plant and environmental data.
• Support the integration of AI algorithms with automated sensing systems for real-world deployment.
• Assist in experimental design, data collection, and statistical analysis for Dr. Ling's laboratory research projects.
• Prepare technical reports, research manuscripts, and conference presentations to communicate project results.

Minimum Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Mechanical/Electrical Engineering. Computer Engineering or related field or equivalent experience and at least 1 year of relevant experience (with Bachelor's); 3 year's with Associate's.
• Strong background in artificial intelligence, machine learning methods (e.g., semantic segmentation, domain adaptation, multimodal models),
• hyperspectral sensing, mechatronics.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct applied research, analyze results, and contribute to publications.
• Effective communication skills with ability to prepare research reports, technical documentation, and presentations.

This job profile is a Researcher 1 (S1 level) on the career roadmap.

The offer for this position will fall within this range based on internal equity, units available budget, and the candidates qualifications