Research Assistant I

Overview

This position has been budgeted for $17.75 per hour and is non-negotiable.

Established in 1943, the mission of the SDSU Research Foundation (SDSURF) is to support the research objectives of San Diego State University by helping faculty and staff find, obtain, and administer funding for their research and sponsored programs. SDSU achieved its strategic plan goal of becoming an R1, premier public research university in early 2025 furthering discoveries, interventions, and solutions that improve communities and change the world. SDSURF provides the full life cycle of grants services to faculty and staff to further their important work.

Our vision is to foster a culture of creativity and collaboration with integrity and respect for individuals that results in the delivery of superior service to support the university’s strategic aspirations.

Our core values:

Service: We are a service organization that strives to provide superior support to the university community to achieve SDSU’s goals; we are committed to being professionally competent by setting high standards and working hard to achieve results; and we continually seeking to improve our skills and capabilities by valuing education and professional development.

Collaboration: We seek to actively engage with our stakeholders and employees to identify issues and design solutions, build strong relationships grounded in trust, openness, and inclusion and achieve the best results by taking pride in the accomplishments of our colleagues.

Innovation: We work towards inspired solutions to improve and adapt to emerging opportunities and challenges, creative ways to streamline and enhance our delivery of services through resourceful and proactive problem solving and strategic use of technology and reduction of obstacles.

Respect: We promote a culture where every individual is valued and treated with dignity, we honor open-mindedness toward different viewpoints and ideas and have a genuine appreciation for varied backgrounds, experiences, and ways of thinking.

Integrity: We are committed to act with the highest ethical standards, with honesty, integrity, and transparency, provide consistent and accurate information and value and respect all individuals.

FUNCTION OF THE UNIT

The Manufacturing Intelligence Lab (MIL) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at San Diego State University conducts fundamental and applied research in smart and autonomous manufacturing. The lab focuses on the development and integration of advanced manufacturing technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, multimodal sensing and sensor fusion, physics-informed AI, agentic AI, edge AI, digital twins, machine vision, and manufacturing process monitoring and optimization.

PURPOSE OF THE POSITION

The Employee will conduct machine learning and AI research for smart and autonomous manufacturing, with a primary focus on manufacturing data analytics, condition monitoring, anomaly detection, predictive modeling, and AI model development and deployment. The Employee will also support the development of data processing pipelines, MLOps frameworks, and integration of AI models with manufacturing systems, with applications in machining and other advanced manufacturing processes.

Responsibilities

Manufacturing Data Processing and AI/ML Model Development 40%:

• Develop data-processing and analysis pipelines for manufacturing data, including sensor, machine, process, and quality data.
• Clean, preprocess, synchronize, and organize datasets for machine-learning applications.
• Develop, train, evaluate, and refine machine-learning models for condition monitoring, anomaly detection, process-state prediction, and other manufacturing intelligence applications.
• Evaluate model performance using appropriate metrics and validation datasets.

AI Model Integration, Deployment, and MLOps 40%:

• Develop software tools and workflows for integrating, deploying, and managing AI/ML models used in manufacturing applications.
• Support model packaging, version control, inference pipelines, APIs, and deployment to computing and edge environments.
• Develop MLOps workflows for experiment tracking, model performance monitoring, data and model versioning, and model updating or retraining.
• Support integration of AI model outputs with other manufacturing AI and decision-support systems.

Other Duties as Assigned20%

Qualifications

Knowledge and Abilities

• Knowledge of machine learning, data analytics, and software development for AI applications.
• Experience with data preprocessing, machine-learning model development, validation, and deployment.
• Proficiency in Python and commonly used scientific computing and machine-learning libraries.
• Familiarity with data pipelines, APIs, databases, version control, containerization, and MLOps tools and practices.
• Ability to analyze and interpret complex datasets
• Ability to develop reliable and reproducible software workflows
• Ability to troubleshoot technical problems,
• Ability to maintain organized research records, and communicate research findings effectively through technical reports and presentations.
• Knowledge of manufacturing or engineering applications is desirable but not required.

Education & Experience

• No required minimum education or experience.

Preferred Qualifications & Special Skills

• A bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, computer science, data science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or a related engineering or technical field is required.
• A master’s degree or current enrollment in a graduate degree program in engineering, data analytics, computer science, or a related field is preferred.
• Relevant academic, research, or professional experience in machine learning, data analytics, software development, AI model deployment, or MLOps is preferred.
• Experience with machine learning, AI, and data analytics.
• Proficiency in Python and common machine-learning frameworks.
• Experience with data pipelines, model development, validation, and deployment.
• Familiarity with MLOps, APIs, databases, Docker, and version control.
• Strong technical communication and collaboration skills.

Additional Applicant Information

• Candidate must reside in California and live within a commutable distance from SDSU at time of hire.
• Job offer is contingent upon satisfactory clearance based on background check results (including a criminal record check).
• San Diego State University Research Foundation is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with California law and federal civil rights laws, SDSU Research Foundation provides equal opportunity in employment without unlawful discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin or any other categories protected by federal or state law.
• Employment decisions are based on an individual’s qualifications as they relate to the job under consideration. Our commitment to equal opportunity means ensuring that every employee has equal access to resources and support.
• SDSU Research Foundation complies with Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the California Equity in Higher Education Act, California’s Proposition 209 (Art. I, Section 31 of the California Constitution), and other applicable state and federal anti-discrimination laws including grant or contract terms and conditions related to funded program activities. Further the SDSU Research Foundation maintains a Nondiscrimination Policy that prohibits discriminatory preferential treatment, segregation based on race or any other protected status, and all forms of unlawful discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in all programs, policies, and practices.
• SDSU Research Foundation makes all employment decisions including, but not limited to, applicant screening, hiring, promotion, demotion, compensation, benefits, disciplinary actions, and terminations on the basis of merit.