Open positions

Opening: Post-doctoral fellow in Computer Vision for Ecology at Caltech

Professors Gkioxari and Perona at the California Institute of Technology are seeking a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Computer Vision. The initial appointment is for one year, renewable yearly for up to three years.

The post-doctoral fellow will be the lead scientist for a project that applies Computer Vision to Ecology and Conservation. The goal of the project is counting salmon traveling upstream in rivers of the Pacific Northwest from underwater ultrasound video that is collected by government and tribal agencies at thirty river locations across Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California. Success in the project will have immediate impact in management and conservation of salmon fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, where salmon is a key component of the economy, ecology and culture. The long-term scope of the project includes applications of Computer Vision to Ecology where animals are to be detected, counted, and classified with minimal prior training of the system. Thus, the long-term impact is improving and expanding data collection for Ecology and Conservation efforts worldwide.

The project pushes the envelope of Computer Vision and Machine Learning in a number of directions. The system will need to detect and count animals accurately at new locations beyond the training sites, and in the face of changing environmental conditions. It will also need to classify the species of each animal according to visual appearance and behavior. Thus developing methods for self-supervised learning, domain adaptation and fine-grained classification in video will be priorities for the technical approach.

The post-doc will report to Professors Pietro Perona and Georgia Gkioxari and will be responsible for the scientific and engineering success of the project. The post-doc will co-advise two graduate students and will manage a software engineer. The project will also involve a team at MIT led by Sara Beery and a team at U. Mass Amherst led by Grant van Horn.

Candidates will need to have completed a PhD in Computer Vision and Machine Learning at the moment of hiring. Preferred attributes are experience in visual classification, detection, and tracking, good collaboration skills, and a passion for ecology and conservation.

Candidates who are interested in the position should send their application to Professor Perona (perona@caltech.edu) with CC to Ms. Caroline Murphy (caroline@caltech.edu). The application should include (a) a brief statement of interest in the position stating why the candidate is qualified, (b) an up-to-date CV, (c) a one-page description of research accomplishments, (d) the names and email of three references.

PhD Students

If you are interested in joining the lab as a PhD student, the first step is to apply for admission to Caltech’s PhD program in Electrical Engineering, Computation and Neural Systems, Computer Science, Computing and Mathematical Sciences, or Control and Dynamical Systems. Application forms and other useful information may be found on Caltech’s graduate admissions page. Unfortunately, we are unable to respond individually to all inquiries from prospective graduate students. Instead, please mention the Computational Vision Group or Professor Perona in your statement of purpose.

Undergraduate Research Assistants

If you are interested in an undergraduate research position in the lab, please send your CV to Caroline Murphy (caroline@caltech.edu). Our lab members often work with the SURF, WAVE, and FSRI programs.