Postdoctoral Research Associate-Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at the Florida A&M University-Florida State University College of Engineering

Department

Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

Responsibilities

The successful candidate will work within a highly interdisciplinary team of engineers, computer scientists, surgeons, and medical educators to develop novel computational methods, publish in leading journals and conferences, mentor graduate students, and contribute to the development of major externally funded research initiatives.

• Develop novel AI and computer vision algorithms for objective assessment of surgical technical performance from video.
• Design and evaluate next-generation video foundation models for surgical skill assessment.
• Develop explainable AI methods that generate clinically meaningful and actionable formative feedback.
• Develop multimodal computational methods that integrate video, motion, and other data sources to improve assessment accuracy.
• Investigate longitudinal models of surgical skill acquisition and performance.
• Collaborate with surgeons and medical educators to validate computational methods using clinical and simulated surgical datasets.
• Publish research in leading journals and conferences in artificial intelligence, computer vision, biomedical engineering, and surgical education.
• Contribute to the preparation of competitive proposals to federal agencies and private foundations.
• Mentor graduate and undergraduate researchers.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, or a closely related discipline.
• Strong background in artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, or computational science
• Excellent programming skills in Python and experience with modern machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or Scikit-learn.
• Demonstrated record of scholarly publications in high-quality conferences and peer-reviewed journals.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively in interdisciplinary research environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with video understanding, video foundation models, vision-language models, self-supervised learning, or explainable AI.
• Experience with biomedical imaging, healthcare data, or human performance analysis.
• Experience mentoring graduate or undergraduate researchers.

Other Information

About the College of Engineering

Located in Tallahassee, Florida, the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering is the nations only jointly operated college of engineering, combining the complementary strengths of Florida State University and Florida A&M University. The College offers an exceptionally collaborative and interdisciplinary research environment with internationally recognized expertise in artificial intelligence, computational science, quantum science and engineering, advanced manufacturing, biomedical engineering, high-performance computing, and materials research. Faculty and students benefit from close collaborations with the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the Center for Advanced Power Systems, regional healthcare partners, and a growing network of federal laboratories and industry collaborators.

Helpful

The NexCom Laboratory (Laboratory for Next-Generation Computation) at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, invites applications for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in AI for Video-Based Surgical Skill Assessment.

The NexCom Laboratory develops next-generation computational methods that combine scientific computing, artificial intelligence, and emerging computational paradigms to solve challenging problems in engineering, medicine, and science. Our research spans scientific machine learning, computer vision, explainable AI, quantum computing, and computational modeling, with an emphasis on developing transformative computational technologies with real-world impact.

This position offers an exceptional opportunity to help shape the future of AI-enabled surgical education. Our research seeks to fundamentally transform how surgical technical performance is assessed by developing intelligent systems that learn directly from surgical video, objectively evaluate technical skill, provide meaningful formative feedback, and support competency-based surgical training.

By combining modern computer vision, video foundation models, self-supervised learning, multimodal machine learning, explainable AI, and human performance modeling, we are developing scalable computational methods that reduce reliance on subjective expert evaluation while improving the consistency, accessibility, and effectiveness of surgical training.

Contact Info

Questions about the position should be directed to Dr. Suvranu De, Search Committee Chair.

University Information

One of the nations elite research universities, Florida State University preserves, expands, and disseminates knowledge in the sciences, technology, arts, humanities, and professions, while embracing a philosophy of learning strongly rooted in the traditions of the liberal arts and critical thinking. Founded in 1851, Florida State University is the oldest continuous site of higher education in Florida. FSU is a community steeped in tradition that fosters research and encourages creativity. At FSU, there's the excitement of being part of a vibrant academic and professional community, surrounded by people whose ideas are shaping tomorrow's news!

Learn more about Florida State University and our campuses.

How To Apply

If qualified and interested in a specific job opening as advertised, apply through the FSU Careers site (jobs.fsu.edu). If you are a current FSU employee, apply through myFSU Self Service.

Applicants are required to complete the online application with all applicable information. Applications must include all work history up to ten years, and education details even if attaching a resume.

Considerations

This is an OPS/temporary job.

Based on the duties, this position may require completion of a criminal history background check.

This position is open until filled

Equal Employment Opportunity

FSU is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer.