Postdoctoral scholarship (2 years) within interactive perception in agri-robotics

Postdoctoral scholarship (2 years) within interactive perception in agri-robotics

The Department of Computing Science is offering a postdoctoral scholarship within the project “Robot-plant interaction for improved plant monitoring and early drought detection”. The scholarship is full-time for two years with access on October 1st , 2026, or as otherwise agreed upon.

The last day to apply is March 2, 2026.

The Department of Computing Science has been growing rapidly in recent years, with a focus on creating an inclusive and bottom-up driven research environment.  Our workplace consists of a diverse set of people from different nationalities, backgrounds, and fields. More information about the department is available at: Department-of-Computing-Science

The successful candidate will be an integral part of the Collaborative Robotics Lab Collaborative-robotics-lab. Research at the lab spans diverse areas such as AI-driven robotics, explainable human-robot interaction, robotic vision and perception, agricultural robotics, collaborative motion planning, physics-informed control, and digital twin technologies.

Project description
The project focuses on the development of robotic methods for plant health monitoring that combine robot–plant interaction with multi-modal perception and machine learning. Current noninvasive agricultural monitoring systems rely primarily on passive sensing, which limits sensitivity to early-stage plant stress. This project investigates how controlled, non-destructive interaction with plants can be used to elicit measurable responses that improve the detection of physiological changes.

The postdoctoral researcher will take part in evaluation of algorithms for early drought stress detection by integrating interactive manipulation strategies with learning-based monitoring methods. This includes designing interaction primitives, processing plant responses to applied forces, and fusing interaction-derived signals with visual data for anomaly detection under field-relevant conditions.

This postdoctoral scholarship is financed by the KEMPE Foundations (Stiftelserna J.C. Kempes och Seth M. Kempes minne). The scholarship is tax-free and amounts to 720,000 SEK for two years, corresponding to 360,000 SEK per year.

Qualifications
To qualify as a postdoctoral scholarship holder, the postdoctoral fellow is required to have completed a doctoral degree or a foreign degree deemed equivalent to a doctoral degree. This qualification requirement must be fulfilled no later than at the time of the decision about scholarship recipient.

Priority should be given to candidates who completed their doctoral degree, according to what is stipulated in the paragraph above, no later than three years prior. If there are special reasons, candidates who completed their doctoral degree before that may also be eligible. Special reasons include absence due to illness, parental leave, appointments of trust in trade union organisations, military service or similar circumstances, as well as clinical practice or other forms of appointment/assignment relevant to the subject area.

Doctoral degree should be within robotics, computer science, electrical engineering, physics, or a related field.

Additional requirements are:

• Experience in industrial robotics, autonomous systems, or robot perception.
• Strong programming skills in Python and/or C++, with experience in robotic software frameworks (e.g., ROS/ROS2).
• Experience with machine learning or computer vision methods, preferably applied to unstructured environments.
• Proven ability to design, implement, and evaluate experimental systems involving hardware and sensors.
• Experience with multi-modal sensing (e.g., RGB-D, thermal, LiDAR, spectral, or force/torque sensors).
• Demonstrated ability to conduct independent research and publish results in peer-reviewed venues.
• Good level of written and spoken English.

Meritorious qualifications are:

• Prior work in agricultural robotics or field robotics.
• Experience with robotic manipulators, or force-based sensing.
• Experience with anomaly detection, self-supervised learning, or learning from limited or noisy data.
• Experience working with plant science, biology, and interdisciplinary research teams.
• Experience with field experiments or deployment of robotic systems outside controlled laboratory environments.

We are seeking a candidate who can function independently and in close collaboration with others, is highly motivated, and has strong interpersonal skills in interdisciplinary research environments in academic and industrial settings. The candidate should have strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with an interest in combining methodological development with experimental validation on real robotic systems. You are driven by curiosity and are motivated to engage with both robotic systems and plant-related research challenges.

Application
The application should be written in English or Swedish, and attached documents should be in Word or PDF format. The application should be registered via Umeå University’s e-recruitment system Varbi and submitted by the deadline March 2, 2026.

A full application should include:

• Cover letter in which you highlight your reasons to apply for the position and how your previous research experience is relevant to the call (1-2 pages),
• Curriculum vitae (CV) with publication list,
• Verified copy of doctoral degree certificate or documentation that clarifies when the degree of doctor is expected to be obtained,
• Verified copies of other diplomas, list of completed academic courses and grades,
• Copy of doctoral thesis and possibly 1-3 most relevant publications,
• Other documents that the applicant wishes to claim.
• Contact information to two persons willing to act as references.

 For further information, please contact Associate Professor Polina Kurtser polina.kurtser@umu.se or Associate Professor Ola Ringdahl ola.ringdahl@umu.se

We look forward to receiving your application!