Postdoctoral Fellow: Agentic AI for Autonomous Lab Systems

University of Texas; Utah; On-site; USD 55,000 - 67,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

Retirement plan

Paid time off

Tuition assistance

Professional development

Job summary

The University of Texas at Austin, in the Cockrell School of Engineering, invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow in agentic AI and autonomous laboratory systems at the Texas Materials Institute. The role focuses on developing AI agents that observe, reason, plan, and act across multiple instruments to enable a fully integrated closed-loop laboratory workflow.

The successful candidate will advance AI models, real-time data analysis, and tool-use APIs to automate materials design,

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in a relevant field conferred within 3 years of start date.
• Strong proficiency in Python and modern ML/agentic AI frameworks.
• Experience with control, optimization, RL, or workflow automation / multi-agent systems.

Responsibilities

• Develop agentic AI models and orchestration frameworks for multi-instrument workflows.
• Design closed-loop optimization and active learning for real-time experiment steering.
• Integrate AI systems with instrument APIs, scheduling, and data interfaces for autonomous operation.
• Build and refine digital twins for synthesis and characterization workflows.

Skills

Python

ML frameworks

Agentic AI

Reinforcement learning

Communication

Team collaboration

Education

Ph.D. in Materials Science, CS, Engineering, Applied Physics, or related field

Job description

The University of Texas at Austin, in the Cockrell School of Engineering, invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow in agentic AI and autonomous laboratory systems at the Texas Materials Institute. The role focuses on developing AI agents that observe, reason, plan, and act across multiple instruments to enable a fully integrated closed-loop laboratory workflow.

The successful candidate will advance AI models, real-time data analysis, and tool-use APIs to automate materials design,