IMMERSE Project Job Opening

The Center for Games and Playable Media (CGPM) invites applications from outstanding individuals for a Senior Technical Lead/Project Scientist position. The position will be responsible for directing the IMMERSE Project, a game-based cultural training system.  Responsibilities include leading the development of the autonomous character and social simulation architecture, including the animation solution for character animation, leading and participating in the implementation and research experimentation with these architectures, managing the UC Santa Cruz IMMERSE team, which will consist of staff, project scientists, postdocs and grad students, and for coordinating with leads from other institutions who are participating in the IMMERSE project. The applicant must be an analytical problem-solver, able to learn and integrate complex technical information quickly, convey complex technical concepts to others in verbal and written form, and have a strong commitment to quality and best engineering practices. The ideal candidate will have experience developing complex software in a team environment, have experience with game development and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) systems into a game, and have strong communication skills. The position requires independence and self-motivation in a team environment, and the ability to provide project and technical leadership.

OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT

IMMERSE is a projected funded under the DARPA Strategic Social Interaction Modules program. The goal of the project is to produce a game-based training environment that teaches people how to be “good strangers”, supporting the practice of skills necessary to have successful social interactions when in novel culture and language contexts. This will be accomplished via virtual dramatic scenarios, realized within the Unity game engine, in which the player interacts with computer-controlled autonomous characters in high-consequence social environments, learning how to quickly recognize and navigate the social interactions norms in these environments. At UC Santa Cruz, the project is run within the Expressive Intelligence Studio, one of the research groups within the Center for Games and Playable Media. Our approach will build upon the autonomous character and story management technologies successfully demonstrated in the interactive drama Façade, and the social simulation system successfully demonstrated in the experimental game Prom Week. Both these games were previously developed within the Expressive Intelligence Studio. The UC Santa Cruz team will be coordinating with four other teams working on IMMERSE – the other teams are developing the pedagogical AI, the full-body immersive interface, and art assets.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

In coordination with the Principle Investigator, the Senior Technical Lead/Project Scientist is responsible for leading the design of the character AI, social simulation and character animation architectures, leading and participating in implementation of these architectures, leading development of internal authoring tools to create character and social simulation content, understanding the training needs of potential users, managing the UC Santa Cruz IMMERSE team (8-10 people including grad students and postdocs), and coordinating with the other IMMERSE teams. The senior technical lead has fully mastered a broad overview of the project, including all software modules and their APIs, and has a specialized deep understanding of one or more major subsystems on which s/he is the technical expert.

Please be aware that there are two separate job postings for this position:

For those with terminal degrees, please apply for the Project Scientist position. Please see the attached PDF for further details and application instructions. Or click here, scroll down to “Jack Baskin School of Engineering” under the Non-Tenure Track category, and click on job T12-29.

We recognize that there may be outstanding applicants lacking a terminal degree, but with extensive industry experience. Please apply to the Senior Technical Lead position. This application is located in the UCSC Staff Employment Opportunities database, so please click here and search postings for number 1103456 to see further details and fill out an application (it will require you to create a username and password).

To ensure full consideration, applications must be received by February 10, 2012. Applications received after this date may not be considered.