PostDoc Researcher

Research Foundation of The City University of New York (RFCUNY); New York (NY); On-site; USD 55,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

RFCUNY, through the AI-BIOME program at CCNY, seeks exceptional postdoctoral researchers to join a frontier project at the intersection of AI agent-enabled reasoning and autonomous experimentation. You will help build scalable, reproducible pipelines for design, synthesis, and characterization of bio-inspired materials.

Collaborate with lead researchers, supervise trainees, and work with partners across national labs and industry to advance closed-loop discovery and high-throughput workflows in

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in a relevant field.
• Experience with AI/ML for autonomous decision making including RL/Imitation learning.
• Hardware-software integration for robotic and automated systems.

Responsibilities

• Conduct research integrating AI-driven experimental design with automated materials synthesis and characterization, emphasizing trustworthiness, reliability, robustness, and transparency in AI decisions.
• Develop algorithms to control AI agents for design and synthesis of bio-inspired materials, including planning and high-throughput disciplines.
• Develop autonomous workflows coordinating robots, analytical instruments, and cloud infrastructure in closed-loop experimentation.
• Publish results and collaborate within the PCL network; supervise graduate students and undergraduates.

Skills

AI/ML algorithms

Reinforcement learning

Imitation learning

Game theory

Control algorithms

Autonomous decision making

Robotics

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Robotic platforms

Embedded systems

Cloud orchestration

Job description

Thank you for considering a career with the Research Foundation of The City University of New York (RFCUNY).

The team at RFCUNY is made up of dedicated, talented professionals committed to providing the services that allow CUNY researchers, faculty, and staff to focus on their intellectual curiosity and scientific discoveries.

We are pleased that you are interested in exploring opportunities to join RFCUNY.

Primary Location:

the CITY COLLEGE of NEW YORK

Bargaining Unit:

No

The AI-Enabled Bio-Inspired Materials discovery Ecosystem (AI-BIOME) at the CUNY City College of New York (CCNY) invites applications for Postdoctoral Researchers. Funded by the NSF grant award, AI-BIOME is a new, public-private Programmable Cloud Laboratory (PCL) Node dedicated to bio-derived, supramolecular, and bioinspired materials design, discovery, and characterization.

We are seeking exceptional, highly motivated early-career scientists to join our team at the frontier of artificial intelligence, robotics, and soft-matter physics. You will work directly with

• Lead PI/Science Lead Ronald Koder
• Co-PI/AI Lead Saptarashmi Bandyopadhyay
• Co-PI/Data Lead Raymond Tu

to build a scalable, reproducible synthesis-and-characterization pipeline.

Position at a Glance

• Role: PostDoctoral Researchers
• Location: CCNY

The Role

This position offers a unique opportunity to work at the intersection of AI agent-enabled reasoning and hands-on autonomous experimentation. Biological and bio-inspired materials offer a massive, programmable design space perfectly suited for algorithmic generalization and optimization. You will help pioneer closed-loop discovery, where multiple AI agents generate hypotheses, propose designs, autonomously plan and execute multi-step trustworthy experiments with robots, and refine themselves in real time through scientific exploration.

As Postdoctoral Researchers, your key responsibilities will include:

• Research Integration: Conduct research integrating AI-driven experimental design with automated materials synthesis and characterization, emphasizing trustworthiness, reliability, robustness, and transparency in AI decisions that guide embedded experimental workflows.
• Algorithms, Theory and System-Level Research to Control AI Agents: Build robust and efficient algorithms to control AI Agents that can learn generalizable plans to design and synthesize bio-inspired materials, adapt to mistakes in the plans autonomously, steer navigation and accelerate discovery and exploration at a distributed scale. This includes developing planning, reasoning, navigation and exploration algorithms (e.g., efficient RL, imitation learning approaches like behavioral cloning, game theoretic equilibriums, hierarchical controllers, causal and probabilistic reasoning modules) that ensure trustworthy behavior of agents in autonomous laboratory environments and enable long-horizon, multi-step high-throughput experimental campaigns.
• Autonomous Workflow Development: Develop new workflows within the robotic platforms, focusing on training new capabilities to the robots. You will help design and validate autonomous laboratory protocols in which embedded AI agents coordinate liquid-handling robots, robotic carts, analytical instruments, and cloud infrastructure in a closed loop high-throughput experimentation environment.
• Scientific Publication and Communication: Disseminate scientific results to the broader community by publishing impactful research papers in reputed conferences and journals. Collaborate with PCL nodes jointly under the PCL research network.
• Mentorship: Supervise graduate research assistants, undergraduates and the workforce originating from the AI-BIOME PCL.
• Collaboration: Work alongside our expansive network of partners, including researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory, NVIDIA, Mozilla AI and other collaborators in major National Labs and companies.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computational Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, Computational Physics, Bioengineering, Computational Chemistry, or a related discipline.
• Experience or strong interest in developing AI/ML algorithms and methods for Single-Agent and Multi-Agent Autonomous Decision Making (such as reinforcement learning, imitation learning, game theory, control algorithms, large multimodal models (VLMs/VLAs), or Bayesian optimization) to autonomously explore physical scientific discovery, laboratory automation, or experimental control.
• Experience or strong interest in hardware development, focusing on building complete hardware-software systems to accelerate discovery in material and interfacial science, including robotic platforms, embedded chemical engineering systems and automated analytical pipelines tightly integrated with AI agents and cloud-based orchestration.
• Ability to work independently while contributing effectively to a highly collaborative, multidisciplinary team environment. A strong commitment to responsible research practices, reproducibility, research ethics and clear communication of autonomous behavior in scientific settings is expected.

Work Arrangement

• Work Arrangement: On-Site at the CCNY campus in the West Harlem Innovation Triangle, with close coordination in CUNY GC and CUNY ASRC.
• Appointment Period: One year, starting October 1, 2026
• Appointment Type: Full-time (Renewable based on performance / funding)

Our Environment

AI-BIOME is co-located within the CUNY City College of New York (CCNY) and CUNY Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) in New York City and is the only PCL node in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut Metropolitan Area. You will have access to unmatched computing infrastructure, high-throughput liquid-handling robotics, and automated analytical tools (including photoelectron & Raman spectroscopies, AFM, and electron microscopy). AI-BIOME’s programmable cloud laboratory environment is designed for AI agents-enabled scientific discovery in autonomous laboratories, where AI agents make autonomous decisions based on computational models with robotic execution for high-throughput experimentation in a unified platform. AI-BIOME will serve as a national training hub, providing fellows with strong intellectual and career-development support.

Pay Range:

$55,000 to $65,000

RFCUNY Benefits

RFCUNY Employee Benefits and Accruals

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

The Research Foundation of the City University of New York is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action/Americans with Disabilities Act/E-Verify Employer. It is the policy of the Research Foundation of CUNY to provide equal employment opportunities free of discrimination based on race, color, age, religion, sex, pregnancy, childbirth, national origin, disability, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, domestic violence victim status, arrest record, criminal conviction history, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.