Postdoctoral Research Associate

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Here at Carolina, our highly skilled postdocs play a vital role in our research enterprise and towards our overall commitment to research excellence. Across many disciplines, postdocs contribute to the intellectual vitality of the University, providing innovative ideas and perspectives, fostering a stimulating research environment, and advancing knowledge within their fields. Postdocs are crucial members of our scientific research workforce, contributors to our research outputs, and an important reason why Carolina is one of the leading public research institutions in the country.

UNC‑Chapel Hill offers postdocs comprehensive medical and vision coverage, paid leave, and benefits and services that support professional development and a healthy work/life balance. Chapel Hill regularly ranks as one of the best college towns and best places to live in the United States, a reputation guided by the diverse social, cultural, recreation and professional opportunities that span the campus and community.

• Department: Computer Science – 318400
• Posting Open Date: 01/17/2025
• Final date to receive applications: 01/17/2026
• Position Type: Postdoctoral Scholar
• Position Title: Postdoctoral Research Associate
• Vacancy : PDS
  004438
• Hours Per Week: 40
• Location: Chapel Hill, NC
• Hiring Range: $75,000
• Estimated Duration: 12 Months

The Department of Computer Science is one of 16 science departments and curricula in the College of Arts and Sciences. It is a major teaching department with more than 30 tenured/tenure‑track faculty, nine research faculty, and 28 adjunct faculty, who serve more than a thousand undergraduate students and hundreds of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Our driving research ideal is collaboration‑as it has been since the founding of our department in 1964.

We believe that computer science’s greatest purpose is in working with other scientists to solve problems in their own disciplines. Therefore, we actively seek opportunities to generate new research with our colleagues and with scientists in other departments across campus, including in science, medicine, and the humanities. Numerous computer science faculty members have adjunct or joint appointments in other departments, lead large interdisciplinary research groups, and collaborate with colleagues from multiple universities across the Research Triangle, the United States, and even the world.

A postdoctoral researcher position is available at UNC under Prof. Mohit Bansal in the UNC‑NLP Lab. The focus of this NLP + ML postdoc position will include, but is not limited to, multimodal + embodied semantics, human‑like language generation and Q&A/dialogue, and interpretable and generalizable deep learning. The duties of the postdoctoral scholar will include aiding the research of graduate students on NLP + ML projects and leading research directions complementary to theirs that fall within the scope of the lab.

The postdoctoral research scholar will have some freedom to create a research agenda, as well as opportunities to advise graduate and undergraduate students in the lab, collaborate with other AI faculty (vision/robotics/ML) in the department, and teach courses if they choose to do so.

Applicants should have (or expect to receive before the start of the position) a PhD in Computer Science or EE/ECE on a topic in machine learning applied to natural language processing, computer vision, or a related area.

• Strong publication record in NLP, ML, or related areas.
• Strong programming skills, including Tensor Flow and/or PyTorch.
• Demonstrated strong communication, teamwork, and leadership skills.

• Applicants should have (or expect to receive before the start of the position) a PhD in Computer Science or EE/ECE on a topic in machine learning applied to natural language processing, computer vision, or a related area.
• Strong publication record in NLP, ML, or related areas.
• Strong programming skills, including Tensor Flow and/or PyTorch.
• Demonstrated strong communication, teamwork, and leadership skills.

For information on UNC Postdoctoral Benefits and Services .