Research Associate /Senior Research Associate positions

University of Bristol

Salary: £32,548 to £41,212 per annum

Deadline: 20th August 2018  

We are seeking to appoint talented computational modelers to join an ERC-funded project entitled “Generalisation in Mind and Machine”.  The project explores how well neural networks support human-like generalisation across a range of tasks.  Two postdoctoral fellows and two PhD students are working on project, and we are looking to hire two more persons with PhDs (or potentially BSc) in computer science or cognitive psychology (or a related field) with experience working with neural networks. 

In contrast with the large community of researchers focused on improving the performance of deep networks for applied reasons, the goal of this project is to explore what neural networks tell us about how the brain works.  More specifically, the team will be working on questions of generalisation in the domains of object identification, word identification, short-term memory, and games, amongst other areas.  A core issue is whether networks need to be include symbolic computations to succeed on some forms of generalisation. For overview of some of the issues we are exploring in the project see: Bowers, J. S. (2017). Parallel Distributed Processing Theory in the Age of Deep Networks. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 950-961.  For more details regarding the project see our ERC website: http://mindandmachine.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/

This post is available from Oct 1st 2018 (but flexible about start date) and currently has funding secured until Oct 1st 2021.  To apply go to: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BKR397/erc-research-associate-senior-research-associate/  If you have any questions, please get in touch with Jeff Bowers at:  j.bowers@bristol.ac.uk

Jeff Bowers