Fully Funded PhD Positions in Artificial Intelligence, Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning, Robotics, and Transportation Engineering

The Transportation & Autonomy Laboratory for Intelligence (TALI) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, led by Assistant Professor Wissam Kontar, is recruiting two fully funded PhD students to join a dynamic research team. The lab specializes in advancing intelligence in transportation systems, with a focus on operations analysis and applied artificial intelligence to address challenges in autonomy, complex agent behaviors, and real-world integration. Research areas include artificial intelligence, multi-agent reinforcement learning, robotics and control, traffic flow theory, and transportation operations. Students will have the opportunity to work on cutting-edge projects such as autonomous vehicle design, consensus-driven AI agents for mixed autonomy traffic, knowledge sharing and personalization across agents, learning under agent heterogeneity, and modern traffic flow theory. The lab's work is highly interdisciplinary, bridging computer science, robotics, and civil engineering, and aims to improve operational performance and societal outcomes in transportation systems. Applicants should possess strong technical foundations, engineering intuition, and solid coding skills. A background in artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems, robotics, control, or transportation engineering is highly desirable. The lab values innovation and collaboration, and welcomes outstanding students who are eager to contribute to impactful research in transportation and autonomy. Funding for these PhD positions is fully provided, covering tuition and a stipend. The lab has received recent awards from the NSF and the Department of Transportation, supporting research in consensus-seeking autonomous agents and safety and mobility risk indices for transportation networks. The TALI group is part of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and collaborates with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Engineering and the UNL Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. To apply, candidates should email their CV, a detailed research statement, relevant papers and coding repositories (such as GitHub), and transcripts to Dr. Wissam Kontar at [email protected]. Prospective students are encouraged to review the lab's research areas and recent publications, which include work on multi-objective autonomous driving, mobility behavior evolution, and human-automated vehicle interactions. The lab's research has been recognized with awards and featured in prominent journals and media outlets. For more information about the lab, visit https://wissamkontar.github.io/ or connect with Dr. Kontar on LinkedIn .