Research Scientist (1-Year Contract), SCIS - Part-Time

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Singapore Management University is a place where high-level professionalism blends together with a healthy informality. The 'family-like' atmosphere among the SMU community fosters a culture where employees work, plan, organise and play together - building a strong collegiality and morale within the university.

Our commitment to attract and retain talent is ongoing. We offer attractive benefits and welfare, competitive compensation packages, and generous professional development opportunities - all to meet the work-life needs of our staff. No wonder, then, that SMU continues to be given numerous awards and recognition for its human resource excellence.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• This position is for School of Computing and Information Systems (SCIS).
• Lead and develop independent research directions within the project, including problem formulation, methodological development, and empirical validation.
• Publish research findings in top-tier journals and conferences in Operations Research, AI, and related fields.
• Disseminate research outcomes through presentations and other scholarly channels.
• Contribute to translating research into practice through engagement with policy and industry stakeholders. Mentor graduate and undergraduate researchers involved in related projects.
• Support grant management and project coordination activities.
• Other duties as assigned.

• Applicants should indicate one or more areas of interest aligned with the following themes:
• Pillar 1: Supply Chain, Logistics, and Mobility Systems
  • Human-centered demand forecasting and adaptive inventory management.
  • Fairness-aware and multi-objective optimization for resource allocation.
  • Multi-agent and human-machine collaboration in logistics and transportation systems.
• Pillar 2: Emergency Response and Crisis Management
  • New paradigms for emergency responders and rescue systems.
  • Transfer learning and diffusion-model learning for diffusion/spread processes.
  • Human-centered contact tracing and crowd management.
• Pillar 3: Healthcare Operations and Policy
  • Data-driven modeling of healthcare demand, capacity, and congestion.
  • Design of operational policies under uncertainty (e.g., screening, triage, resource allocation).
  • Integration of behavioral, clinical, and system-level considerations in healthcare delivery.

• PhD (completed by start-date) in Operations Research, Industrial Engineering, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Transportation, Logistics, or a closely related field.
• Strong background in optimization (e.g., integer/combinatorial optimization, stochastic/robust/online optimization, network models, queueing systems, simulation-based optimization).
• Strong background in machine learning (e.g., representation learning, sequence/time-series modeling, probabilistic modeling, or learning under distribution shift).
• Proven research track record (publications, strong writing, ability to frame contributions clearly).
• Solid programming skills; proficient in using AI tools for research.
• Ability to work independently, manage research milestones, and communicate effectively in a collaborative environment.
• Preference for candidate who has
  • Experience with large-scale, constraint decision problems (e.g., operations, mobility, logistics, healthcare, or emergency response)
  • Experience with multi-agent systems, multi-objective optimization, fairness-aware modeling, or human-centered decision-making approaches
  • Experience with reinforcement learning, diffusion or spread models, explainable AI, transfer learning, or learning under non-stationarity or distribution shift
  • Experience in developing reproducible research codebases (e.g., version control, experiment tracking, and documentation)

#LI-JN2