Postdoctoral Research Associate, Computational Design

The Computational Design (CD) group of the AI Center at SRI International is seeking a strong and enthusiastic researcher with a Ph.D. in engineering, physical, or computational sciences to join our team as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at our Menlo Park, CA office.

Founded in 1966, SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center (AIC) has played a key role in AI research since the development of Shakey the Robot in the early days of the field. The lab continues to push the boundaries in AI as it develops innovative technologies and explores their application across a range of domains. The lab has an outstanding track record of moving its research into the real world with successes such as Siri (developed originally on DARPA funding, subsequently acquired by Apple) and the BioCyc family of bioinformatics knowledge bases and tools which have been licensed by over 11,000 users. The Computational Design (CD) group was founded in 2020 in the iconic Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) that merged with SRI in 2023. CD has been at the forefront of applying computational and AI methods to democratize design for heterogeneous constraints such as physics-based performance, manufacturing readiness, and supply chain resilience.

The researcher will initially work on exciting ongoing projects funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on design and digital manufacturing, particularly on co-design of engineering system components and materials for high-end applications in aerospace, energy, and consumer products. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise, research experience, and software development skills in generative design, shape/topology and material layout optimization, solid/fluid mechanics, and machine learning (ML).

Responsibilities will include contributing to existing research projects through formulation of technical challenges, design of solution concepts and strategies, developing algorithms, implementing and maintaining software code and databases, evaluating and interpreting results, disseminating the findings in conference presentations and journal publications, generating high-value intellectual property, and supporting technology transfer to commercial partners.

In the short-term, you will contribute to the following technical areas:

Developing gradient-descent optimization algorithms to design shape, topology, and material layout in three-dimensional (3D) domains.
• Developing physics-based and data-driven models to evaluate coupled mechanical, thermal, and other physical performance criteria, manufacturability constraints, and other requirements.
• Developing or incorporating probabilistic material models.
• Using and integrating open-source numerical simulation libraries (e.g., MFEM, FEniCS, or Moose), commercial software APIs (e.g., Ansys and Abaqus), material modeling tools and databases (e.g., ThermoCalc and JMatPro) and other off-the-shelf computational packages as needed.

Longer-term expectations include demonstrating an ability to conduct independent research, contributing to strong proposals to acquire additional funding from government agencies and commercial partners, and eventually growing into Principal Investigator (PI) or co-PI roles, mentoring interns, enhancing visibility of the lab and group through engagement with the broader research community and service activities, and helping senior researchers and lab management with long-term strategic thinking to grow design and digital manufacturing initiatives at SRI.

• Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Applied Math, Material Science, Computer Science, or related discipline.
• At least four years of academic research experience as a Graduate/Research Assistant in an ongoing higher-education program.
• Strong mathematical and computational foundations, especially geometric and physical modeling.
• A background in computational physics (e.g., solid/fluid mechanics), computational geometry, computational materials, or related research areas.
• Familiarity with optimization techniques, numerical analysis, and statistical learning (e.g., AI/ML).
• Proficiency with at least one programming language (e.g., Python or C++) and one ML model development framework (e.g., PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow).
• A working knowledge of programming styles (e.g., object-oriented programming) and best practices to enable code readability and maintainability, version control and collaboration, testing and debugging, etc.
• Familiarity (or ability to quickly learn) open-source libraries or commercial software APIs for physics-based numerical analysis, optimization, and AI/ML.
  Demonstrated experience with research-grade publications and strong track record as a first author in high-quality peer-reviewed journals or conferences.

In addition, any of the following are a plus, but not required:

• Related industrial or entrepreneurial experience (including internships).
• Experience with manufacturing and testing techniques.
• Experience with Product Lifecycle Management (PLM).
• Experience with commercial-strength software engineering in a collaborative environment, system design approaches (e.g, service-oriented architecture), parallel algorithm development and CPU/GPU programming (e.g., MPI or CUDA).

Exceptional candidates will also have personal skills such as:

• Independence in problem formulation and creativity in problem solving.
• Attention to detail and ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Eagerness to learn new technologies and apply fundamental research to solve real-world pain-points with commercial potential.
• Strong organizational and interpersonal skills.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.

The salary range is: $83,200-$104,000. Salary ranges will vary and are based on several factors, including geographic location, market competitiveness and equity amongst internal employees in similar roles. Positions may also qualify for SRI's Pay for Outstanding Performance program or the annual Performance Based Compensation program. SRI also has a competitive benefits package, to view details please go to https://www.sri.com/resources/benefits/. SRI will accept applications until the position is filled.

SRI is an independent nonprofit research institute headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., with a rich history of supporting government and industry. We create and deliver world-changing solutions for a safer, healthier, and more sustainable future. For more than 75 years, we have collaborated across technical and scientific disciplines to discover and develop groundbreaking products and technologies and bring innovations and ideas to the marketplace.