Research Associate II - Robotics Institute

Carnegie Mellon University; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); On-site; USD 34,440 - 55,104; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical, prescription, dental, and vision insurance

Generous retirement savings program

Tuition benefits

Paid time off and observed holidays

Free Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus pass

Job summary

Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute is seeking a Research Associate to join their team in Pittsburgh, PA. This role involves designing experiments, performing complex analysis, and managing data. Candidates should have strong analytical and communication skills, with a Bachelor's Degree and 3–5 years of relevant research experience.

The position offers an engaging work environment with a variety of benefits, including comprehensive healthcare and a retirement savings program.

Qualifications

• 3–5 years of research experience.
• 3–5 years of data collection and analysis experience.
• 3–5 years of research lab experience.
• 3–5 years of research methodology experience.
• OSHA Hazardous Materials Safety Training.

Responsibilities

• Design experiments and research protocols under supervision.
• Perform complex analysis to report results.
• Collect, verify, and manage data.
• Develop quantitative models.
• Ensure project deadlines are met.

Skills

Analytical skills

Communication skills

Problem-solving skills

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Job description

Overview

Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute is searching for a Research Associate to join its team. This is an exciting opportunity for someone who thrives in an interesting and challenging work environment.

Responsibilities

• Design experiments and research protocols under general supervision.
• Perform complex analysis to report results.
• Collect, verify, and manage data.
• Perform data analysis to produce reports.
• Document and process results.
• Develop quantitative models.
• Contribute to overall project planning and act as lead to coordinate portions of a large project or study.
• Ensure project deadlines are met.
• Contribute to open‑source release of the ARISTOS codebase, assist in preparing research publications, and support development of evaluation benchmarks for trainee competence assessment.
• Design and execute evaluation benchmarks for the ARISTOS prototype system, including metrics for trainee competence assessment, system accuracy on drone repair tasks, and generalization to unseen devices and failure modes.
• Develop few‑shot multimodal reasoning and generative video models for the ARISTOS reskilling platform, including building pipelines for contextualized step‑by‑step instructional video synthesis for physical task training.
• Leverage spatial information, part segmentation, 3D reconstruction, and tactile inputs to physically ground vision‑language model agents, enabling them to reason about object pose, part affordances, and manipulation dynamics for mechatronic device diagnosis and repair.
• Maintain administrative records.
• Track and adhere to established budgets.
• Program software in support of job functions as needed.
• Write and edit recommendations and reports.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree
• Strong analytical skills
• Strong oral and written communication skills
• Strong problem‑solving and reasoning skills
• 3–5 years of research experience
• 3–5 years of data collection and analysis experience
• 3–5 years of research lab experience
• 3–5 years of research methodology experience
• OSHA Hazardous Materials Safety Training

Employment Details

• Job Function: Researchers
• Position Type: Staff – Fixed Term (Fixed Term)
• Employment: Full Time/Part time (Part time)
• Pay Basis: Hourly

Location

Pittsburgh, PA

Benefits

Joining the CMU team opens the door to an array of exceptional benefits, including comprehensive medical, prescription, dental, and vision insurance, a generous retirement savings program with employer contributions, tuition benefits, ample paid time off and observed holidays, life and accidental death and disability insurance, a free Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus pass, access to a Family Concierge Team for childcare, fitness center access, and more.

EEO Statement

Carnegie Mellon University is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Disability/Veteran. Statement of Assurance.