Position: Research Scientist

Focus Area: Autonomous Agents for Multimodal Character Interaction

Disney Research


Disney Research Pittsburgh is seeking applicants for a Research
Scientist position, at either the junior or senior level, in
Autonomous Agents. The research emphasis is on architecture to support
the integration of natural language with character-based reasoning and
behavior.


As part of The Walt Disney Company, Disney Research builds upon a rich
legacy of innovation and technology leadership in the entertainment
industry that continues to this day. Disney Research was launched in
2008 offering the best attributes of academia and industry with the
goal of driving value across the company through technological
innovation. Our research covers a broad range of exciting and
challenging applications that are experienced daily by millions of
people around the world.


Our staff interacts directly with all core business areas of The Walt
Disney Company including Theme Parks and Imagineering, Consumer
Products, our Live Action and Animation Studios, and Media Networks.
We publish our research and are actively engaged with the global
research community. Our researchers collaborate closely with
co-located academic institutions.


We are seeking applicants in the following areas:

·         Agent architectures for language-based character interaction.

·         AI and machine learning methods for autonomous,
semantically-rich character behavior

Duties:

·         Drive value for Disney through groundbreaking research and innovation

·         Lead a research group with post-doctoral researchers,
interns, and external collaborators

·         Publish results and patent inventions in multimodal interaction

·         Participate in conferences, workshops and academic-industrial events

·         Develop a strong network of business partners within the company

Required Qualifications:

·         Ph.D. in Computer Science or equivalent

·         Proven track record of developing autonomous, integrated
agents with real-time NL components.

·         Experience with both symbolic and statistical machine
learning methods as applied to modeling semantics, action, or behavior

·         Possess strong technical presentation skills and able to
clearly communicate with technical and non-technical audiences

Desired Qualifications:

·         Experience in interaction design for entertainment

·         Background in NLP (e.g., relationship extraction, word sense
disambiguation, narrative generation) desirable



To apply:

Please email careers@disneyresearch.com. Please use DRP-RS-NLP-2017 in
your subject line. If you're interested in the position or for any
further information, please contact Jill Lehman
(jill.lehman@disneyresearch.com).