Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Decision-making under uncertainty for robots

Central Oxford

We are looking for a post-doctoral research assistant to join the GOALS group (http://ori.ox.ac.uk/labs/goals/) within the Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI), as part of the EPSRC Programme Grant in Embodied Intelligence (https://embodiedintelligence.web.ox.ac.uk) and other follow-on projects.  

The successful applicant will be committed to our research on decision-making for autonomous systems. Our work focuses on mission planning under uncertainty, and sequential decision-making more generally. We tackle problems in single and multi-agent systems operating in uncertain environments and around humans. We typically work with Markov decision processes (MDPs), and are interested in both fundamental algorithms for producing policies for rich goal structures in MDPs (e.g. risk, temporal logic, or probabilistic objectives), and modelling robot decision problems using MDPs (e.g. human-robot interaction, safe exploration, long-term monitoring). Our recent research on algorithms has included work on epistemic uncertainty, uncertain MDPs, proactive task allocation, multi-robot coordination, offline reinforcement learning (RL), Bayes adaptive RL, and planning with novel variants of Monte Carlo tree search.

You should possess a relevant PhD/DPhil or be near completion together with relevant experience, including a track record of contributions in decision-making under uncertainty robotic exploration and mission planning under epistemic uncertainty.  You will have knowledge or experience in modelling and solving problems under uncertainty, from either an AI, robotics, or verification perspective, and an ability to manage own academic research and associated activities.

Informal enquiries may be addressed to Nick Hawes (email: nick.hawes@eng.ox.ac.uk).

For more information about working at the Department, see

www.eng.ox.ac.uk/about/work-with-us/

Only online applications received before midday on 21 September 2026 can be considered. You will be required to upload a covering letter/supporting statement, including a brief statement of research interests (describing how past experience and future plans fit with the advertised position), CV and the details of two referees as part of your online application.

The Department holds an Athena Swan Bronze award, highlighting its commitment to promoting women in Science, Engineering and Technology. 

Keywords : AI, robotics, planning, uncertainty, decision-,making

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