Postdoc Opening

PostDoc position is available to help research FactionSim - a quick to setup and use tool to see if local conflict or cooperation emerges in diverse regional factions as users attempt alternative courses of action. The successful postdoc candidate will help to further the agent-based models of FactionSim, study its properties and validity, and produce it as a highly usable tool for field training and analysis on how to influence local factions to avoid conflicts and to collaborate on the collective good. This research synthesizes several years of the PIÕs work on many of the elements for assembling FactionSim Š Lsim for leaders only (thick leader agents based on descriptive agent-based models with subjective expected utility-theoretic algorithms), Athena world diplomacy game that scales up leaders and poses tests for heuristics to solve hard AI problems (nested intentionality, campaign planning, negotiation), and most recently a DARPA-sponsored regional conflict prototype that tested how to bridge together a leader hierarchy with a social network of followers (small world theory with thick leader agents influencing a cellular automata model). It is time to bring all these pieces together into a stable architecture focused on smaller scale conflict and cooperation issues. This will permit us to solve some of the hard simulation problems on a smaller scoped problem than Athena, and it will offer the dual benefit of spinning off a regional faction conflict tool. Despite efforts at simplicity, stochastic simulation models for domains such as this rapidly become complex. As a result, we have begun to add an experiment design and policy exploration front end onto FactionSim coupled with a warehouse for analyzing and mining the outcome space. Research is also needed on ways to reliably explore and optimize search in intractably large simulation spaces.

The postdoctoral position is primarily aimed at the FactionSim work but may also include the other research strands, depending on the interests of the candidate. For example, depending on his/her orientation, the candidate may work closely with faculty who collaborate with us from computer science, political science, statistics, Wharton, and partnering universities. A version of FactionSim is also being plugged into role playing games. Candidates should have a PhD in electrical and systems, cognitive or computer science, computational social dynamics, or related discipline. Experience with gaming and simulation is highly desirable as are interests in computational modeling of behavior. Salary will be based on experience in relation to our standard postdoctoral scale.

ACASA is headed by Barry G. Silverman who is coordinating the research efforts. Candidates interested in the position should email a vita and a short statement about graduate training and research interests to Barry Silverman.

Contact
Barry G. Silverman, Ph.D.
Professor of Engineering/ESE, Wharton/OPIM, and Medicine
Director, Ackoff Collaboratory for Advancement of the Systems Approach (ACASA)
Towne Bldg, Rm 251, University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6315
basil@seas.upenn.edu
(215)573-8368
FAX: (215)898-5020