The Michigan Traffic Lab (MTL) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is seeking fully funded summer interns, Ph.D. research assistants, and postdoctoral research fellows in the area of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). This opportunity will provide the candidate with the experience of working in a world-class research group with state-of-the-art CAV-related resources.

MTL focuses on the development of methodologies and applications in CAV and smart transportation technologies, particularly on infrastructure-assisted cooperative driving automation, testing and evaluation of CAVs, naturalistic driving environment modeling, traffic signal optimization, and applications of artificial intelligence in transportation systems. Several research products developed by MTL have been commercialized and implemented in the field, including augmented reality testing environment of CAVs, naturalistic driving environment simulator, and optimizing signal as a service (OSaaS). MTL leads several large research projects with national prominence, including Smart Intersections Project and Michigan Mobility Collaborative, The researchers and students at MTL have access to the most advanced CAV-related research equipment including Mcity test track, Level 4 autonomous vehicles, and High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure on the cloud.

Requirements: prospective students/researchers must have a degree in related fields, such as Transportation Engineering, Automotive Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science. The candidates should have strong programming (e.g., C/C++ and Python) and mathematical (e.g., optimization, machine learning, and control theory) skills. Candidates are required to have strong core fundamentals that allow them to work across disciplinary boundaries. Candidates with practical knowledge in one or more of the following areas and experience in machine learning, computer vision, CAV development, etc. are preferred.

The Director of MTL, Prof. Henry Liu, is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is also the Director of Mcity and Center for Connected and Automated Transportation (USDOT Region 5 University Transportation Center). Mcity is the world’s first purpose-built CAV proving ground and remains to be the most advanced CAV test track in the world. From July 2017 to August 2019, Prof. Liu served as Chief Scientist on Smart Transportation for DiDi, one of the leading mobility service providers in the world. Liu has nurtured a new generation of scholars from both academia and industry, and some of his Ph.D. students and postdocs have joined first-class universities such as Columbia University, Purdue University, New York University, RPI, Apple Inc, Meta Platforms (Facebook), etc.

If you are interested, please send your CV and cover letter (and transcript for summer internship and Ph.D. research assistant applications) to Prof. Liu at henryliu@umich.edu.