Postdoctoral Fellow in AI and Cognitive Science

VS-Postdoc; Baltimore (MD); On-site; USD 63,000 - 76,000; Full time

Job summary

Johns Hopkins University is seeking a Postdoctoral Fellow in AI and Cognitive Science to lead machine learning work on signed languages. The role involves designing experiments, building benchmarks, curating datasets, and presenting results to collaborators, with opportunities to publish in journals and contribute to NSF/NIH-type grants.

Relocation to the Johns Hopkins campus is required. The successful candidate will have a PhD in a relevant field, strong publications, and proficient

Qualifications

• PhD in Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Psychology, Linguistics, or related fields.

Responsibilities

• Design, execute, and troubleshoot experiments
• Develop and validate benchmarks for model evaluation
• Contribute to the development of datasets for model training and evaluation
• Mentor and supervise graduate and undergraduate students
• Prepare progress reports and present results to collaborators
• Publish findings in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings
• Contribute to competitive grant proposals to federal agencies (e.g., NIH)

Skills

Deep learning

Computer vision

Computational linguistics

Transfer learning

MATLAB

Python

Education

PhD in Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Psychology, Linguistics, or related fields

Tools

MATLAB

Python

Job description

Postdoctoral Fellow in AI and Cognitive Science

2026-08-03

Postdoctoral Fellow in AI and Cognitive Science

Johns Hopkins University

Type: Full-Time

Salary: $63,480 - $76,000 a year

Posted: Today

The Language Creation and Learning Laboratory (PI Annemarie Kocab) in the Department of Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University seeks an outstanding postdoctoral fellow to lead scientific efforts on machine learning applications to signed languages to begin by Fall 2026.

The fellow will work on research projects spanning evaluation of deep learning neural networks trained on signed language recognition. The fellow will work closely with the PI Annemarie Kocab and collaborator Alex Lu, Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research. Duties will include:

Design, execute, and troubleshoot experiments

Develop and validate benchmarks for model evaluation

Contribute to the development of datasets for model training and evaluation

Mentor and supervise graduate and undergraduate students

Prepare progress reports and present results to collaborators

Publish findings in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings

Contribute to competitive grant proposals to federal agencies (e.g., NIH)

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

PhD in Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Psychology, Linguistics, or related fields

Ability to move to and work at Johns Hopkins University, USA

Demonstrated track record of first-author publications and presentations

Experience with computational methods and machine learning, including but not limited to deep learning, computer vision, computational linguistics, pretraining methods, interpretability, and transfer learning

Experience with cognitive science, particularly psycholinguistics or linguistics

Proficiency in data analysis and computational tools; strong programming skills (e.g., MATLAB, Python, or equivalent)

Ability to lead research projects and collaborate with experimentalists

Strong written and oral communication skills

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with human computer interaction, accessibility, or AI fairness and ethics

Salary Range

The referenced salary range represents the minimum and maximum salaries for this position and is based on Johns Hopkins University's good faith belief at the time of posting. Not all candidates will be eligible for the upper end of the salary range. The actual compensation offered to the selected candidate may vary and will ultimately depend on multiple factors, which may include the successful candidate's geographic location, skills, work experience, internal equity, market conditions, education/training and other factors, as reasonably determined by the University.

Total Rewards

Johns Hopkins offers a total rewards package that supports our employees' health, life, career and retirement. More information can be found here: https://hr.jhu.edu/benefits-worklife/.

Equal Opportunity Employer

The Johns Hopkins University is committed to equal opportunity for its faculty, staff, and students. To that end, the university does not discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, marital status, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status or other legally protected characteristics. The university is committed to providing qualified individuals access to all academic and employment programs, benefits and activities on the basis of demonstrated ability, performance and merit without regard to personal factors or demographic characteristics that are irrelevant to the program involved.

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