Postdoctoral Research Associate in Neuromorphic Computing and Spiking Neural Networks Oak Ridge National Laboratory in United States

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is recruiting a Postdoctoral Research Associate in neuromorphic computing and spiking neural networks (SNNs) at its Learning Systems Group in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States.

This position is centered on hardware-software co-design for edge neuromorphic systems and event-driven processing architectures. The successful candidate will develop low-level software, drivers, and firmware for executing SNNs on resource-constrained embedded platforms, implement SNN execution frameworks on microcontrollers (ARM, RISC-V), FPGAs, or specialized neuromorphic processors, and perform power profiling, energy-per-inference measurements, and latency benchmarking on physical hardware.

Research themes include embedded systems, real-time operating systems (RTOS), FPGA design, hardware-aware AI optimization, event-based sensing, and neuromorphic hardware platforms. The group works on scalable machine-learning models, deep-learning architectures, scientific knowledge discovery, autonomous and energy-efficient systems, and data-driven methods across science, energy, national security, and health.

Eligibility highlights: applicants must hold a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related field; have strong programming skills in C, C++, and Python; experience with embedded systems or bare-metal/RTOS development; familiarity with ARM or RISC-V microcontrollers and FPGA development using HDL languages; knowledge of communication protocols such as SPI, I2C, UART, or PCIe; and a strong publication record. The post also asks for excellent communication skills and the ability to work independently and collaboratively.

Preferred experience includes power profiling tools, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, event-based vision sensors, robotics platforms, Address-Event Representation (AER), quantization/pruning/fixed-point optimization, neuromorphic software frameworks, non-volatile memory devices, and commercial or research neuromorphic hardware such as ORNL’s NeuroCoreX.

Funding and appointment: this is a postdoctoral appointment for up to 24 months, with possible extension depending on performance and funding availability. ORNL notes competitive pay and benefits, but no stipend amount is listed.

Application: apply via the ORNL jobs portal. Submit three letters of reference with your application or have them emailed to [email protected]. The posting states the position will remain open for a minimum of 5 days and then close when a qualified candidate is identified and/or hired.