Research Assistant

Singapore University of Technology and Design's Meta Design Lab (MDL) is calling for a researcher or senior researcher to assist on ongoing projects, working with the Lee Kwan Yew Centner for Innovative Cites (LKYCIC), on government funded projects supported by Singapore's National Parks Board, Urban Redevelopment Agency and Housing Development Board.

Research Domain Description

Current research aims to investigate the relationship between macro-urban configurations and its effect on residents. It hypothesises that resident's aggregate activity are a product of the design and configuration of urban spaces. However, the observed relationship between spatial configuration and activity has not been well researched nor empirically correlated. This research aims to take a significantly more data-driven, analytical, and spatially focused approach, considering and ideally correlating how an urban design effects users activity and decisions. Expanding the domain of urban population health research, and related methodological approaches.

To do this our lab is working to build an AI driven video and image based tracking to capture activity on site, subsequently using this data with analytics and data visualisation to understand and interpret this. Realised by capturing using anonymised images though small onsite camera sensor deployment. AI tracking of users of public spaces using and potentially extending existing ML models to enable aggregate user monitoring and identification of social temporal activity by location. To visualise this data as well a potentially build predictive models. A sample of this ongoing work can be found here.

Researcher Description

The best candidate is a motived person who is enthusiastic about rapidly conceiving, implementing and testing technologies such as AI, ML, and computer vision to spatial problems. Happy to explore and process reasonably large data sets. The job aims to give a motivated self-starter the research freedom and space to explore new concepts, supported and guided within a small group of domain experts in computation and urban design. The SUTD environment is that of a start-up university and so well suited to those with personal initiative both professionally and socially. Researchers are given a high level of autonomy with the focus on achieving progress over presenteeism. The role is mostly programming solution development based, as well as requiing time to analyse, summarise and present results on slides. There will also be some requirement for site visits and meetings in Singapore to plan and coordinate sensor deployment.

The hire will directly report to Sam Conrad Joyce of the Meta Design Lab with industry and research experience in design, architecture, as well as spatially applied analytics, data-vis, ML, and image recognition. They may also work closely with LKYCIC and others for understanding wellness and health aspects and data needs for the user capture and monitoring.

Domain Background (one of)

Computer Science, ML/AI, Data-Scientist, Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, Architecture or Urban Planning

Education

Relevant bachelors or master's degrees in one of the above fields.Alternatively, someone from the Engineering, Architectural or Geography background with experience in the above domain areas specifically AI/ML.

Desired Skills

Strong experience in working with data and analytics in python.

Experience in applying ML on practical problems

Ability to work individually, as well as collaborate in small teams

A project lead and outcome driven planning and software development approach

Open to working in an interdisciplinary way

Interest in architecture, urban planning and design in general

Required Technical Proficiency

Python

Data science and analytics, Pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib

Experience processing and cleaning data

Desired Technical Proficiency

Analytics and processing of images and/or video: OpenCV, ffmepeg etc.

Image Recognition and ML frameworks: Scikit, Detectron2, Yolo, Deep Sort, etc.

Capability with Command line/Colab/AWS and similar server could systems

Data Visualisation: Observable, D3

Web development frontend/backend

Any enquiries or questions please direct to