Assistant Professor, Computational Mind and Behavior, College of Connected Computing at Vanderbilt University

Official Advertisement for Assistant Professor positions: Assistant Professor in the College of Connected Computing Within Vanderbilt University's new College of Connected Computing, we're building a new Computational Mind & Behavior (CMB) area to use computation to make mind and behavior explainable—and mind and behavior to make new forms of computation possible. We're recruiting exceptional scholars at Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor levels to help shape our scientific directions, collaborations, and intellectual community. The vision is to discover the principles that generate intelligence and behavior—from brains and individuals to interacting agents, groups, cultures, and societies—and understand what happens as human and artificial intelligence become increasingly intertwined. We're particularly interested in four interconnected research directions: Brain & Cognition / NeuroAI — How biological and artificial systems perceive, learn, reason, decide, and adapt. Language, Embodiment & Interaction — How minds communicate and connect through language, multimodal signals, embodied behavior, and human–AI interaction. Strategic Social Behavior — How cooperation, competition, social inference, and strategic decision-making emerge among interacting agents. Networks & Collective Intelligence — How behavior and intelligence emerge across social networks, cultures, populations, and human–AI collectives. We welcome outstanding researchers from computing, AI, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and related disciplines. We value deep disciplinary expertise, ambitious scientific questions, innovative computational approaches, and the potential to forge new connections across fields. Join us in building an intellectual community that connects fundamental discoveries about intelligence and behavior with new computational ideas, methods, and technologies. We'd be delighted to hear from prospective candidates and discuss our scientific vision, recruitment priorities, and opportunities within CMB.Contact Prof. Rachael E. Jack Area Head, Computational Mind & Behavior rachael.e.jack@vanderbilt.eduVanderbilt University invites applications for multiple tenure-track Assistant Professor positions in computing and related disciplines. New faculty will join Vanderbilt's new College of Connected Computing, founded on a "computing for all" vision that brings computer science, data science, and artificial intelligence together with a growing set of interdisciplinary areas, such as computational biology, human-computer interaction, computing + society, and computational mind and behavior. Learn more about the College and its research at computing.vanderbilt.edu. Successful applicants are expected to develop vigorous, externally funded research programs, teach at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and mentor doctoral students. The search will place particular emphasis on candidates' potential to secure external research funding from federal agencies, foundations, industry, or other sources. Every assistant professor joins an area with tenured colleagues, receives named faculty mentors, and is supported by a start-up package that includes guaranteed doctoral student funding. This is an open search in all areas of computing research, with particular interest in the following six broad areas: Physical Intelligence. Robotics, embodied and physical AI, computer vision, robot learning, and autonomous systems, including autonomy in cities and other complex real-world environments. Foundations of Computing. Theoretical computer science, quantum algorithms and quantum information, optimization, statistics and probabilistic machine learning, numerical and scientific machine learning, and formal methods, with opportunities for courtesy appointments in Mathematics. Humans, Computing & Society. Computational mind and behavior, including the computational principles underlying perception, cognition, emotion, language, and social interaction at the brain and behavioral levels; human-computer interaction, including human-centered AI, interactive technologies for civic life, learning, work, health, and accessibility; and computing + society, including how computing and society shape one another across culture, organizations, policy, and infrastructure. Secure & Trustworthy Systems. Security across systems, networks, and software; applied cryptography; usable security and privacy; security of cyber-physical systems and urban infrastructure; and verification of critical and learning-enabled systems. AI in Education and Computational Learning Technologies. Artificial intelligence in education; learning analytics and educational data mining; human-centered design of computational learning technologies; adaptive and personalized learning technologies; technologies for self-regulated and collaborative learning; AI and computer science education; AI-based educational measurement and assessment; and AI-enabled training and upskilling, with the possibility of joint appointments with Peabody College. Computational Biology. Genomics and bioinformatics algorithms, systems biology, biomedical informatics and natural language processing, AI for health, and other computational approaches to biological and biomedical data. New faculty join a growing group of senior computational biologists in the College. We welcome applications across computing, including work that spans or extends beyond the areas listed above. To facilitate review, identify one of the six areas as your primary review area in your cover letter, choosing the closest fit. You may also identify a secondary area and briefly explain the connections. Submit only one application to the appropriate rank-specific search; the College will coordinate review across areas as appropriate. Vanderbilt University is a private research university located on 330 park‐like acres on the western edge of downtown Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville is a regional center for culture and technology that has grown alongside the university since Vanderbilt's founding in 1873.