there is a postdoc opening in the humanoid, cognitive, neuro-, and collaborative robotics group (https://cyber.felk.cvut.cz/research/groups-teams/humanoids/) coordinated by Dr. Matej Hoffmann (https://sites.google.com/site/matejhof/) at the Department of Cybernetics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague.

In the context of a 5-year project entitled “Whole-body awareness for safe and natural interaction: from brains to collaborative robots” for excellence in fundamental research from the Czech Science Foundation (see https://cyber.felk.cvut.cz/news/new-gacr-expro-project for more information), we seek a postdoctoral researcher to conduct research in some of the following areas:

- Neural network models of multisensory integration, body schema, and reaching development

- Employing humanoid robots with artificial skin to construct embodied computational models of body and peripersonal space representations 

The postdoc will independently conduct research and will also be involved in shaping the research of the group and supervising students. 

Robots and infrastructure

The humanoids group has at its disposal several humanoid robots (iCub, 2 Naos - 1 with whole-body sensitive skin) and collaborative or lightweight manipulators (KUKA LBR iiwa, UR10e with Airskin, Kinova Gen3). Additional infrastructure includes several robot hands (Barrett Hand BH8-282, QB Soft Hand) and grippers, a 3D Motion Capture System, impact measuring devices, etc. The group has also access to the facilities of the Research Center for Informatics such as a high-performance computational cluster.

International collaborations

There is a large group of international experts who have agreed to act as collaborators/advisors on the project. These include experts in

- developmental psychology: Dr. Kevin O’Regan (CNRS, Paris), Prof. Jeffrey J. Lockman (Tulane University, New Orleans) 

- cognitive psychology and neuroscience: Prof. Matthew Longo (Birkbeck University, London), Prof. Tobias Heed (Bielefeld), Prof. Andrea Serino (University of Lausanne), Dr. Jean-Paul Noel (Center for Neural Science at New York University), Drs. M.Gori and Giulia Cappagli (Italian Institute of Technology, Dr. S. Signorini (IRCSS Fondazione Mondino Pavia) 

Prague

There is currently a very lively international ecosystem in the areas of robotics and AI - at the Department and in Prague in general. See, for example, http://rci.cvut.cz/ or https://prg.ai/en/. 

We seek applicants with a background in computational modeling, artificial neural networks or machine learning, with interest in neuroscience. Background in robotics is not required.

How to apply. The application should include: 

- Motivation letter (max. 1 page)

- CV (including 2 reference persons)

- 1 Letter of recommendation (can be from 1 of the reference persons above)