Research Fellow in Reinforcement Learning

**Job no**: 0055414
**Location**: Parkville
**Role type**: Full-time, fixed term for 12 months (possibility of extension)
**Faculty**: Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
**Department/School**: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
**Salary**: Level A - $77,171 - $104,717 p.a. plus 17% super, minimum salary for PhD graduate - $97,558
- Explore, develop, analyse, and demonstrate various approaches in safe reinforcement learning
- Opportunity to grow you career and travel internationally to attend conferences and collaborate with research groups

The University of Melbourne would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners of the lands upon which our campuses are situated, the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung peoples, the Yorta Yorta Nation, the Dja Dja Wuurang people. We acknowledge that the land on which we meet and learn was the place of age-old ceremonies, of celebration, initiation and renewal, and that the local Aboriginal peoples have had and continue to have a unique role in the life of these lands.

**The Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT) **is strongly committed to supporting diversity and flexibility in the workplace. Improving the representation of women is necessary in our goal to innovate and to strengthen FEIT’s reputation as a best-in-class centre of research.

**School of Electrical, Mechanical and Infrastructure Engineering (EMI)** recognises that engineered systems of present and future significance increasingly have connections to all three.

We are the oldest engineering school in Australia - initially founded in 1861 - and have evolved into a vibrant community of internationally recognised researchers passionate about addressing major challenges of today and into the future.

**About the role**:
The Research Fellow will work on reinforcement learning, or other data-driven control methodologies, with a view to ensure constraint satisfaction during both the learning and deployment phases to avoid unsafe behaviour.

There is funding available for attending international conferences and visiting an internationally recognized research group for collaboration on the topic of this position. The research group has longstanding collaboration links with researchers from the University of California Irvine, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Princeton University, Australian National University, and KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Responsibilities include:

- Providing expertise in design, analysis, and demonstration of reinforcement learning and data-driven control with constraint satisfaction for safety.
- Publication of high-quality research papers on the topic of reinforcement learning and data-driven control in peer-reviewed top journals and conferences in computer science and control engineering.
- Providing project representation to various internal or external stakeholders.
- Attending and participating in relevant meetings, seminars, and conferences.
- Contributing to training, mentoring, and supervision of students.

**About You**

You are a confident communicator with well-developed interpersonal and negotiation skills with the ability to build and maintain relationships with internal and external stakeholders within a diverse work environment. You are organised, detail oriented with a strong work ethic, commitment to continuous improvement, openness to new ideas and creative approaches to problem solving within established timelines.

Ideally, you will further have:

- A PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, or Applied Mathematics.
- A solid understanding of the theory of at least of one of the topics of reinforcement learning, optimal control, optimization theory, or system identification.
- An excellent track record of quality research as evidenced by publications in the top peer-reviewed journals and conferences of systems and control, signal processing, computer science, or applied mathematics.

For specific responsibilities of this role please refer to the attached.

You will be supported to pursue achievement in all pillars of an academic career:

- Research & Research Training
- Contribution to Teaching and Learning
- Engagement
- Service and Leadership

**About the University**
The University of Melbourne is consistently ranked amongst the leading universities in the world. We are proud of our people, our commitment to research and teaching excellence, and our global engagement.

**Benefits of Working with Us**
In addition to having the opportunity to grow and be challenged, and to be part of a vibrant campus life, our people enjoy a range of rewarding benefits:

- Flexible working arrangements, generous personal, parental and cultural leave
- Competitive remuneration, 17% super, salary packaging and leave loading
- Free and subsidised health and wellbeing services, and access to fitness and cultural clubs
- Discounts on a wide range of products and services including Myki cards and Qantas Club
- Career de