Overview

We are seeking a full‑time Postdoctoral Research Assistant to join Torr Vision Group at the Department of Engineering Science, central Oxford. The post is funded by EPSRC and is fixed‑term to the 30th September 2026. We are looking for an outstanding machine learning researcher to join the Torr Vision Group and work on AI Scientists: systems that use foundation models, AI agents, and robotics to automate scientific discovery in both the natural and social sciences. The postholder will contribute to one or more of the following strands:

Responsibilities

• Foundational work on large‑scale/foundation models and agentic architectures for autonomous scientific reasoning and planning;
• AI social scientists, including language‑model‑based and agent‑based simulations for social science domains such as history, economics, and other areas of computational social science;
• AI scientists for natural science, integrating LLM agents with simulation and, where appropriate, robotic experimentation (e.g., automated "dry" and "wet" lab workflows).

You will be able to design, develop and implement algorithms and systems based on foundation models, large language models and/or AI agents for automated scientific discovery, in natural science and/or social science domains.

Qualifications

Candidates should possess a PhD (or be near completion) in Computer Science, AI, Security, or a related field. You will have a strong background in machine learning and/or computer security and experience working with LLMs or agent‑based systems.