2 POSTDOCS REQUIRED AT ATR's BRAIN BUILDER GROUP

[Hugo de Garis]

             2 POSTDOCS REQUIRED AT ATR's BRAIN BUILDER GROUP, 
                  EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS DEPT, KYOTO, JAPAN

ATR's Brain Builder Group, Kyoto, Japan, needs 2 US postdocs in the fields of

A) Mini-Robotics/Mechatronics (to build a robot kitten for ATR's 
   Artificial Brain)
B) Evolvable Hardware (to apply Genetic Algorithms to FPGAs 
   (Field Programmable Gate Arrays)) (e.g. Xilinx's XC6200)

ATR's Evolutionary Systems Dept (ESD) is (arguably) the strongest ALife group 
in the world with people such as Tom Ray (of Tierra fame) and Chris Langton 
(father of ALife, and regular ESD visitor and collaborator). One of the 
highlights of the ESD is the CAM-Brain Project, which builds/grows/evolves a 
billion neuron artificial brain using cellular automata based neural modules 
which will grow inside our cellular automata machine (a hundred billion cell 
updates a second). This artificial brain requires a body to house it, hence 
our group needs a body builder. If you have extensive experience in building 
minirobots with off the shelf components, then you might like to join our 
brain builder group. Ideally, we want to grow/evolve our neural circuits 
directly in hardware at hardware speeds. We are looking for a second postdoc 
in the new field of evolvable hardware. If you have extensive experience in 
FPGA use, and are familiar with genetic algorithms and neural networks, then 
please join us.

Applicants should have a PhD, be US citizens (or have a green card). The 
working period is from 3 months to 2 years, preferably 2 years, granted by the
US NSF (National Science Foundation). The actual money comes from the Japanese
"Japan Foundation" and their Center for Global Partnership. The grants cover 
salary, airfare, rent, but not research costs. 

Selection will be a two phase process. The first is to be recommended by us.
Then your application has to be sent to the NSF in Washington DC by April 1 
1996. (Applications are received twice yearly, April 1 and November 1). 
The NSF people say that if the candidate and the project are good, the odds of
selection are 50%. Probable starting date in Japan would be about September 
1996. If you do a good job, there's a possibility that you could stay on at
ATR on a long term basis.

Sabbatical leave grants are also possible for more senior candidates.

The type of candidates we are looking for need to be big egoed dreamers with 
strong vision and creativity. The senior members of ESD are all pioneers. 
If you are a CD type (i.e. competent dullard, meaning high in analytical 
skills, but lacking in vision and creativity), then this spot is not for you).

If you are interested, please send your resume by email to -

Dr. Hugo de Garis,
Brain Builder Group, Evolutionary Systems Dept.,
ATR Human Information Processing Research Labs,
2-2 Hikari-dai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun,
Kansai Science City, Kyoto-fu, 619-02, Japan.
tel.  + 81 774 95 1079,  fax. + 81 774 59 1008,
email.  degaris at hip.atr.co.jp

For more information from the NSF, contact -

email.   info at nsf.gov
tel.     703 306 1234 or 703 306 0090
web.     http://www.nsf.gov/

If you have friends you might be interested, please forward this to them.