PhD Positions in AI for the Built Environment

Challenge Decision-making under uncertainty for life-cycle control of structural systemsChange Develop autonomous, data-informed, and adaptive decision frameworksImpact Enhance safety, sustainability, and resilience of the built environment

The TU Delft Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab for Design, Analysis, and Optimization in Architecture & the Built Environment (AiDAPT) have two PhD vacancies in the areas of AI-driven decision-support analytics for (i) structural life-cycle assessment & optimization under uncertainty, and (ii) adaptive infrastructure management against multiple stressors.

You are highly motivated to work at the confluence of structural/architectural engineering, systems risk & reliability, optimization, and AI, towards addressing resilience and sustainability challenges of an aging, growing, and changing built environment. Recent advances in AI provide us with unprecedented capabilities to scale up and automate our design, information processing, and structural intervention strategies in complex and high-dimensional engineering settings. In this direction, of particular interest to this research is how we can harness AI to make optimal and dynamic decisions in the presence of multiple stressors and hazards; uncertainties in structural health data and models; evolving environmental and anthropogenic demands; resource limitations; and long-term socioeconomic risks.

The research streams delineated by the two positions are aimed at providing novel insights in the ways the built environment will optimally adapt and change in the years to come, supported by innovative synergies between data-driven intelligence and model-based engineering. You are expected to produce new knowledge that integrates deep, reinforcement and statistical learning methods, with data-based inference, decision theory and structural mechanics.

You will join the research group of Dr. Charalampos Andriotis, at the Chair of Structural Design & Mechanics, in the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. Each position is funded for a duration of 5 years, during which the appointed candidates will (i) undertake research on their PhD topics and (ii) assist with the educational and research agenda of AiDAPT and the host Chair.