Project Overview

The "Mens, Manus and Machina—How AI Empowers People, Institutions and Cities in Singapore (M3S)" project is driven by the goal of investigating the nature of work, redefining our relationship with technology, and exploring how institutions can adapt to foster livability, sustainability, innovation, and social welfare.

Successful applicants will have the opportunity to work on cutting-edge projects that aim to develop state-of-the-art AI to create future smart cities. The Postdoctoral Associate is in the T5 project for the five-year M3S program in SMART. The SMART team seeks to advance the frontier of AI research, apply it to society and cities, and demonstrate the concrete social impacts of the AI algorithms with broad public acceptance in Singapore.

Specifically, the SMART-T5 project aims to develop innovative machine learning algorithms that nudge human activities to maximize the growth of social capital and the economy. We will employ techniques such as generative AI, multimodal AI, computer vision, and graph learning for city generation and prediction. Additionally, we will investigate how spatial-social networks influence economic growth using cutting-edge technologies, including network theory, deep learning, and causal machine learning. This will allow us to better understand and enhance economic progress in Singapore.This initiative leverages the integrated data sets of micro human mobility (e.g. phone trajectory), social network (e.g. Twitter), transportation infrastructure, and macro socioeconomics, thus connecting the micro-behavioral mechanism to macro-economic development.

The SMART-T5 team is led by distinguished scholars, i.e., Professor Alex "Sandy" Pentland, Professor Jinhua Zhao, and Professor Siqi Zheng from MIT, Professor Simon Chesterman from National University of Singapore, and Professor Shenhao Wang from University of Florida. You can contact Dr. Yunhan Zheng (yunhan.zheng@smart.mit.edu) and Professor Shenhao Wang (shenhaowang@ufl.edu) for further information.

Job Description

• Collaborate with the project team and other researchers to design, implement, and evaluate research projects.
• Publish research results in top-tier conferences and journals, and disseminate research findings through presentations and other means.
• Participate in the mentorship and training of graduate and undergraduate students at MIT and in Singapore.
• Assist in grant writing, project management, and other administrative duties related to research activities.
• Perform other duties as needed. 

Job Requirements

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Transportation Engineering, Operation Research, Computational Social Science, Network Science, Civil Engineering, Economics, Statistics, Urban Planning, Industrial Engineering, or a related field by the start of the appointment.
• Experience in generative AI, multimodal AI, reinforcement learning, deep learning, statistical modeling, network analysis, and/or optimization, with a strong emphasis on generative AI, multimodal AI, and reinforcement learning.
• Experience in behavioral/economic models, urban mobility, and their integration with AI.
• Strong publication record in top-tier conferences and journals.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.

Interested applicants are invited to send in their full CV/resume, cover letter and list of three references (to include reference names and contact information). We regret that only shortlisted candidates will be notified.