Post Doctoral Research Associate

The University of Texas at Arlington Portal • Arlington, TX

2d • Onsite

About The Position

The Department of Civil Engineering in the College of Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington invites applications for a full-time Postdoctoral Research Associate in Transportation Health, Safety, and Human Behavior. The successful candidate will work under the supervision of Dr. Kate Hyun in the Sustainable Mobility and Resilient Transportation (SMART) Research Lab and support an interdisciplinary portfolio of sponsored research examining how individual-level decisions and behaviors influence transportation health and safety. Research with human participants is central to the position. The primary emphasis is on driving behavior and safety, including attention, risk assessment, learning and behavior change, and emerging technologies. Related applications may include novice and neurodivergent drivers, older adults, school-zone and community safety, vulnerable road users, and rural and Tribal transportation contexts. The postdoctoral researcher will integrate research involving human participants, behavioral analysis, and computational methods. Work will include designing and implementing mixed-method studies with human participants; collecting person-level sensor/simulator and field data; analyzing repeated-measures and multimodal behavioral data; developing behavior-informed simulations using digital twins; and evaluating education, technology, and infrastructure countermeasures. The role also includes project coordination, community engagement, technical and scholarly communication, proposal development, and student mentoring. Anticipated start date: January 15, 2027. This is a grant-funded appointment. Renewal, if offered, is contingent on satisfactory performance, continued funding, and University policy.

Requirements

• Ph.D. completed by the start date in civil engineering (transportation focused) or a closely related field with a research focus relevant to transportation health, safety, or human behavior
• Demonstrated experience designing or conducting empirical research involving human participants, such as behavioral experiments, surveys, interviews, field studies, simulator studies, or other laboratory or community-based research
• Demonstrated technical capability in advanced behavioral or transportation data analysis and in at least one of the following areas: sensor-based field or laboratory data collection, driving or traffic simulation, behavior-informed digital twins, machine or deep learning, or computer vision
• Excellent written, oral, visual, and interpersonal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical work clearly to both technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Demonstrated experience working directly with public agencies, community organizations, practitioners, research participants, or other external partners in a collaborative or community-engaged setting
• Evidence of scholarly and technical productivity, such as peer-reviewed publications, a dissertation, sponsor reports, conference presentations, or other substantive research products
• Ability and willingness to travel domestically, including occasional overnight travel, and to participate in field work or partner and community activities that may occur outside standard business hours

Nice To Haves

• Experience conducting medical, clinical, or other human behavioral research involving human participants, including Institutional Review Board review, participant recruitment, informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, participant safety, and management of sensitive research data
• Experience applying machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, time-series or sequence modeling, or multimodal data fusion to person-level driving, safety, health, or behavioral data
• Experience designing and implementing community-participatory research, community-based participatory research, or other community-engaged research, including co-developing study questions or protocols, facilitating stakeholder input, conducting workshops or focus groups, incorporating community feedback, and translating findings into useful products or actions
• Experience working with public agencies, Tribal Nations, rural communities, schools, health or human-service organizations, nonprofit organizations, older adults, novice or neurodivergent drivers, youth, people with disabilities, or other community partners and participant groups
• Experience preparing competitive research proposals, managing sponsor-funded projects, producing practitioner-oriented deliverables, or presenting findings to sponsors and professional audiences

Responsibilities

• Lead or co-lead multiple sponsored projects centered on transportation health and safety, human behavior, and individual-level decision making, coordinating tasks, schedules, deliverables, and communication across multidisciplinary teams
• Design and implement laboratory, field, and community-based studies involving human participants, including recruitment, screening, informed consent, retention, and participant safety procedures in accordance with approved protocols
• Plan and conduct behavioral data collection using methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, roadway observations, driving simulators, eye tracking, video, GPS or vehicle telematics, mobile devices, wearable or physiological sensors, and other field or laboratory instrumentation
• Apply appropriate behavioral, statistical, econometric, causal, spatial, machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, time-series, or mixed-methods approaches to understand driving decisions, risk, attention, and safety-related responses
• Build productive working relationships with federal, state, local, and Tribal transportation agencies; school districts; nonprofit organizations; industry partners; health and human-service organizations; community organizations; and research participants.
• Facilitate meetings, workshops, and participatory research activities and communicate technical information in an accessible and respectful manner
• Prepare high-quality peer-reviewed manuscripts, sponsor reports, technical memoranda, presentations, practitioner-facing products, data and code documentation, and research proposals
• Travel domestically for field data collection, partner meetings, community engagement, training, and conference or sponsor presentations, and perform other research-related duties consistent with the position

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree