Permanent Positions

For full-time, permanent positions, applicants should have a Masters degree, Ph.D., or equivalent experience in a relevant field and should demonstrate more advanced proficiency in some of the skills described. More senior individuals will be considered as well.

Experience with proposal preparation and/or program management is a plus, but not required. Full-time applicants would have the opportunity to grow into securing and leading their own research and development programs.

Areas of Interest

SIFT is always open to new colleagues in any area, but of particular interest are researchers in the areas of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Human Computer Interaction

Investigation of methods to improve the interactions of humans with complex computer automation; example current major HCI projects:

• UI, planner, and simulation interfaces for UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) systems
• stochastic workload modeling for Army helicopter pilots
• cultural modeling and interaction evaluation for training scenarios in a game/simulation environment
• effects of culture-specific 'etiquette' and politeness on compliance with directives
• user intent recognition algorithm/software development
• procedure display evaluation aid for NASA

Specific applicant skills/experience to be evaluated; not all required:

• human-automation interaction design, theory and evaluation techniques
• linguistics, sociology, social psychology and/or anthropology;
  especially as they apply to human interactions in group and cross cultural group settings
• UI design principles
• ability to implement UI designs in software;
  especially using Java or Python
• experiment design, conduct and analysis techniques
• Multiple Resource Theory and workload measurement
• experience with training/games simulation and/or military simulations and applications
• AI planning techniques;
  especially hierarchical task network (HTN) planners

Artificial Intelligence

Employing AI techniques to support human control of complex systems; example current major AI projects:

• UI, planner, and simulation interfaces for UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) systems
• planning system for web service composition as part of DARPA'sIntegrated Learning program
• plan/intent recognition algorithms and software for web service and computer security applications
• procedure display evaluation aid for NASA

Specific applicant skills/experience to be evaluated; not all required:

• Development/engineering skills:
  • rapid development using ultra-high level languages (primarily Common Lisp) and scripting languages (e.g. PERL and Python)
  • Java, largely for developing platform-independent user-interfaces
  • constraint programming
  • functional programming (e.g., SML, Ocaml, Haskell)
• Key research experience:
  • AI planning methods; ideally both practical and theoretical
  • plan recognition
  • search algorithms
  • constraint satisfaction/optimization
• Additional valued research experience:
  • formal methods
  • control theory
  • optimization techniques
  • Human/Computer Interaction (HCI) and UI development
  • simulation

Employment Restrictions

Due to the nature of our contract work, positions at SIFT are generally limited to US citizens or permanent residents.

To Apply

Please send your curriculum vitae and expression of interest to hiringsift [dot] net.