Location San Diego

Description

Artificial Intelligence is changing the world for the benefit of human beings and societies. QUALCOMM, as the world's leading mobile computing platform provider, is committed to enable the wide deployment of intelligent solutions on all possible devices – like smart phones, autonomous vehicles, robotics and IOT devices. Qualcomm is creating building blocks for the intelligent edge.

We are part of Qualcomm AI Research, and we focus on advancing Edge AI machine learning technology – including model fine tuning, hardware acceleration, model quantization, model compression, network architecture search (NAS), edge inference and related fields. Come join us on this exciting journey. In this particular role, you will work in a dynamic research environment, be part of a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and software engineers who work with cutting edge AI frameworks and tools. You will architect, design, develop, test, and deploy on- and off-device benchmarking workflows for model zoos.

Minimum Qualifications: • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 4+ years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience. OR Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 3+ years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience. OR PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 2+ years of Hardware Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related work experience.The successful applicant should have a strong theoretical background and proven hands-on experience with AI as modern software-, web-, and cloud-engineering.

Must have experience and skills: Strong theoretical background in AI and general ML techniques Proven hands-on experience with model training, inference, and evaluation. Proven hands-on experience with PyTorch, ONNX, TensorFlow, CUDA, and others. Experience developing data pipelines for ML/AI training and inferencing in the cloud. Prior experience in deploying containerized (web-) applications to IAAS environments such as AWS (preferred), Azure or GCP, backed by Dev-Ops and CI/CD technologies. Strong Linux command line skills. Strong experience with Docker and Git. Strong general analytical and debugging skills. Prior experience working in agile environments. Prior experience in collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams across time zones. Strong team player, communicator, presenter, mentor, and teacher. Preferred extra experience and skills: Prior experience with model quantization, profiling and running models on edge devices. Prior experience in developing full stack web applications using frameworks such as Ruby-on-Rails (preferred), Django, Phoenix/Elixir, Spring, Node.js or others. Knowledge of relational database design and optimization, hands on experience with running Postgres (preferred), MySQL or other relational databases in production Preferred qualifications: Bachelor's, Master's and/or PhD degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field and 2-5 years of work experience in Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Hardware Engineering or related.

A postdoctoral position is available in Harvard Ophthalmology Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab (https://ophai.hms.harvard.edu) under the supervision of Dr. Mengyu Wang (https://ophai.hms.harvard.edu/team/dr-wang/) at Schepens Eye Research Institute of Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School. The start date is flexible, with a preference for candidates capable of starting in August or September 2024. The initial appointment will be for one year with the possibility of extension. Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Salary for the postdoctoral fellow will follow the NIH guideline commensurate with years of postdoctoral research experience.

In the course of this interdisciplinary project, the postdoc will collaborate with a team of world-class scientists and clinicians with backgrounds in visual psychophysics, engineering, biostatistics, computer science, and ophthalmology. The postdoc will work on developing statistical and machine learning models to improve the diagnosis and prognosis of common eye diseases such as glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. The postdoc will have access to abundant resources for education, career development and research both from the Harvard hospital campus and Harvard University campus. More than half of our postdocs secured a faculty position after their time in our lab.

For our data resources, we have about 3 million 2D fundus photos and more than 1 million 3D optical coherence tomography scans. Please check http://ophai.hms.harvard.edu/data for more details. For our GPU resources, we have 22 in-house GPUs in total including 8 80-GB Nvidia H100 GPUs, 10 48-GB Nvidia RTX A6000 GPUs, and 4 Nvidia RTX 6000 GPUs. Please check http://ophai.hms.harvard.edu/computing for more details. Our recent research has been published in ICCV 2023, ICLR 2024, CVPR 2024, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, and Medical Image Analysis. Please check https://github.com/Harvard-Ophthalmology-AI-Lab for more details.

The successful applicant will:

1. possess or be on track to complete a PhD or MD with background in computer science, mathematics, computational science, statistics, machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, image processing, biomedical engineering, bioinformatics, visual science and ophthalmology or a related field. Fluency in written and spoken English is essential.

2. have strong programming skills (Python, R, MATLAB, C++, etc.) and in-depth understanding of statistics and machine learning. Experience with Linux clusters is a plus.

3. have a strong and productive publication record.

4. have a strong work ethic and time management skills along with the ability to work independently and within a multidisciplinary team as required.

Your application should include:

1. curriculum vitae

2. statement of past research accomplishments, career goal and how this position will help you achieve your goals

3. Two representative publications

4. contact information for three references

The application should be sent to Mengyu Wang via email (mengyu_wang at meei.harvard.edu) with subject “Postdoctoral Application in Harvard Ophthalmology AI Lab".

Location Multiple Locations

Description Today, more intelligence is moving to end devices, and mobile is becoming the pervasive AI platform. Building on the smartphone foundation and the scale of mobile, Qualcomm envisions making AI ubiquitous—expanding beyond mobile and powering other end devices, machines, vehicles, and things. We are inventing, developing, and commercializing power-efficient on-device AI, edge cloud AI, and 5G to make this a reality.

Job Purpose & Responsibilities As a member of Qualcomm’s ML Systems Team, you will participate in two activities: Development and evolution of ML/AI compilers (production and exploratory versions) for efficient mappings of ML/AI algorithms on existing and future HW Analysis of ML/AI algorithms and workloads to drive future features in Qualcomm’s ML HW/SW offerings

Key Responsibilities: Contributing to the development and evolution of ML/AI compilers within Qualcomm Defining and implementing algorithms for mapping ML/AI workloads to Qualcomm HW Understanding trends in ML network design, through customer engagements and latest academic research, and how this affects both SW and HW design Creation of performance-driven simulation components (using C++, Python) for analysis and design of high-performance HW/SW algorithms on future SoCs Exploration and analysis of performance/area/power trade-offs for future HW and SW ML algorithms Pre-Silicon prediction of performance for various ML algorithms Running, debugging and analyzing performance simulations to suggest enhancements to Qualcomm hardware and software to tackle compute and system memory-related bottlenecks · Successful applications will work in cross-site, cross-functional teams.

Requirements: Demonstrated ability to learn, think and adapt in fast changing environment Detail-oriented with strong problem-solving, analytical and debugging skills Strong communication skills (written and verbal) Strong background in algorithm development and performance analysis is essential The following experiences would be significant assets: Strong object-oriented design principles Strong knowledge of C++ Strong knowledge of Python Experience in compiler design and development Knowledge of network model formats/platforms (eg. Pytorch, Tensorflow, ONNX) is an asset. On-silicon debug skills of high-performance compute algorithms · Knowledge of algorithms and data structures Knowledge of software development processes (revision control, CD/CI, etc.) · Familiarity with tools such as git, Jenkins, Docker, clang/MSVC Knowledge of computer architecture, digital circuits and event-driven transactional models/simulators

Figma is growing our team of passionate people on a mission to make design accessible to all. Born on the Web, Figma helps entire product teams brainstorm, design and build better products — from start to finish. Whether it’s consolidating tools, simplifying workflows, or collaborating across teams and time zones, Figma makes the design process faster, more efficient, and fun while keeping everyone on the same page. From great products to long-lasting companies, we believe that nothing great is made alone—come make with us!

The AI Platform team at Figma is working on an exciting mission of expanding the frontiers of AI for creativity, and developing magical experiences in Figma products. This involves making existing features like search smarter, and incorporating new features using cutting edge Generative AI and deep learning techniques. We’re looking for engineers with a background in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to improve our products and build new capabilities. You will be driving fundamental and applied research in this area. You will be combining industry best practices and a first-principles approach to design and build ML models that will improve Figma’s design and collaboration tool.

What you’ll do at Figma:

• Driving fundamental and applied research in ML/AI using Generative AI, deep learning and classical machine learning, with Figma product use cases in mind.
• Formulate and implement new modeling approaches both to improve the effectiveness of Figma’s current models as well as enable the launch of entirely new AI-powered product features.
• Work in concert with other ML researchers, as well as product and infrastructure engineers to productionize new models and systems to power features in Figma’s design and collaboration tool.
• Expand the boundaries of what is possible with the current technology set and experiment with novel ideas.
• Publish scientific work on problems relevant to Figma in leading conferences like ICML, NeurIPS, CVPR etc.

We'd love to hear from you if you have:

• Recently obtained or is in the process of obtaining a PhD in AI, Computer Science or a related field. Degree must be completed prior to starting at Figma.
• Demonstrated expertise in machine learning with a publication record in relevant conferences, or a track record in applying machine learning techniques to products.
• Experience in Python and machine learning frameworks (such as PyTorch, TensorFlow or JAX).
• Experience building systems based on deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and/or generative models.
• Experience solving sophisticated problems and comparing alternative solutions, trade-offs, and diverse points of view to determine a path forward.
• Experience communicating and working across functions to drive solutions.

While not required, it’s an added plus if you also have:

• Experience working in industry on relevant AI projects through internships or past full time work.
• Publications in recent advances in AI like Large language models (LLMs), Vision language Models (VLMs) or diffusion models.

We are seeking a highly motivated candidate for a fully funded postdoctoral researcher position to work in 3D computer graphics and 3D computer vision.

The successful candidate will join the 3D Graphics and Vision research group led by Prof. Binh-Son Hua at the School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland to work on topics related to generative AI in the 3D domain. The School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin is a collegiate, friendly, and research-intensive centre for academic study and research excellence. The School has been ranked #1 in Ireland, top 25 in Europe, and top 100 Worldwide (QS Subject Rankings 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

The postdoctoral researcher is expected to conduct fundamental research and publish in top-tier computer vision and computer graphics conferences (CVPR, ECCV, ICCV, SIGGRAPH) and journals (TPAMI, IJCV). Other responsibilities include supporting graduate or undergraduate students with technical guidance and engagement in other research activities such as paper reviews, reading group, workshop organization, etc.

The start date of the position is August 01, 2024. Contract duration is 1 year with the option of renewing for a second year. The successful candidate will require the following skills and knowledge: • PhD in Computer Science or related fields; • Strong tracked records in 3D computer graphics, 3D computer vision; • Hands-on experience in training deep models and generative models is required; • Hands-on experience and relevant skills in computer graphics and computer vision application development such as OpenGL, OpenCV, CUDA, Blender is desirable; • Strong programming skills in C++, Python. Capability in implementing systems from research papers and open-source software. • Additional background in math, statistics, or physics is an advantage.

Applicants should provide the following information: • A comprehensive CV including a full list of publications; • The name and contact details of two referees. One of the referees should be the applicant’s PhD supervisor; • Two representative papers by the applicant. Interested candidates should email their applications to Binh-Son Hua (https://sonhua.github.io) directly. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position has been filled.

Location San Diego

Description

At Qualcomm, we are transforming the automotive industry with our Snapdragon Digital Chassis and building the next generation software defined vehicle (SDV).

Snapdragon Ride is an integral pillar of our Snapdragon Digital Chassis, and since its launch it has gained momentum with a growing number of global automakers and Tier1 suppliers. Snapdragon Ride aims to address the complexity of autonomous driving and ADAS by leveraging its high-performance, power-efficient SoC, industry-leading artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and pioneering vision and drive policy stack to deliver a comprehensive, cost and energy efficient systems solution.

Enabling safe, comfortable, and affordable autonomous driving includes solving some of the most demanding and challenging technological problems. From centimeter-level localization to multimodal sensor perception, sensor fusion, behavior prediction, maneuver planning, and trajectory planning and control, each one of these functions introduces its own unique challenges to solve, verify, test, and deploy on the road.

We are looking for smart, innovative and motivated individuals with strong theory background in deep learning, advanced signal processing, probability & algorithms and good implementation skills in python/C++. Job responsibilities include design and development of novel algorithms for solving complex problems related to behavior prediction for autonomous driving, including trajectory and intention prediction. Develop novel deep learning models to predict trajectories for road users and optimize them to run-in real-time systems. Work closely with sensor fusion and planning team on defining requirements and KPIs. Work closely with test engineers to develop test plans for validating performance in simulations and real-world testing.

Minimum Qualifications: • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field and 6+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience. OR Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field and 5+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience. OR PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field and 4+ years of Systems Engineering or related work experience.Preferred Qualifications: Ph.D + 2 years industry experience in behavior and trajectory prediction Proficient in variety of deep learning models like CNN, Transformer, RNN, LSTM, VAE, GraphCNN etc Experience working with NLP Deep Learning Networks Proficient in state of the art in machine learning tools (pytorch, tensor flow) 3+ years of experience with Programming Language such as C, C++, Python, etc. 3+ years Systems Engineering, or related work experience in the area of behavior and trajectory prediction. Experience working with, modifying, and creating advanced algorithms Analytical and scientific mindset, with the ability to solve complex problems. Experience in Autonomous driving, Robotics, XR/AR/VR Experience with robust software design for safety-critical systems Excellent written and verbal communication skills, ability to work with a cross-functional team

We are seeking a highly motivated candidate for a fully funded PhD position to work in 3D computer graphics and 3D computer vision.

The successful candidate will join the 3D Graphics and Vision research group led by Prof. Binh-Son Hua at the School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland to work on topics related to generative AI in the 3D domain.

The School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin is a collegiate, friendly, and research-intensive centre for academic study and research excellence. The School has been ranked #1 in Ireland, top 25 in Europe, and top 100 Worldwide (QS Subject Rankings 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

The PhD student is expected to conduct fundamental research and publish in top-tier computer vision and computer graphics conferences (CVPR, ECCV, ICCV, SIGGRAPH) and journals (TPAMI, IJCV).

The start date of the position is September 01, 2024. The position is fully funded for 4 years by Science Foundation Ireland.

The successful candidate will require the following skills and knowledge: • Bachelor or Master in Computer Science or related fields; • Strong competence in computer graphics, computer vision; • Solid experience in academic research and publications is an advantage; • Additional background in math, statistics, or physics is an advantage. • Hands-on experience in training deep models; • Hands-on experience in computer graphics and computer vision application development such as OpenGL, OpenCV, CUDA, Blender; • Strong programming skills in C++, Python. Capability in implementing systems based on open-source software.

Applicants should provide the following information: • A comprehensive CV; • Academic transcripts of Bachelor and Master’s degree; • The name and contact details of two referees.

Interested candidates can email Binh-Son Hua (https://sonhua.github.io) for an informal discussion of the position. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position has been filled.

Redwood City, CA; or Remote, US

We help make autonomous technologies more efficient, safer, and accessible.

Helm.ai builds AI software for autonomous driving and robotics. Our "Deep Teaching" methodology is uniquely data and capital efficient, allowing us to surpass traditional approaches. Our unsupervised learning software can train neural networks without the need for human annotation or simulation and is hardware-agnostic. We work with some of the world's largest automotive manufacturers and we've raised over $100M from Honda, Goodyear Ventures, Mando, and others to help us scale.

Our team is made up of people with a diverse set of experiences in software and academia. We work together towards one common goal: to integrate the software you'll help us build into hundreds of millions of vehicles.

We offer: - Competitive health insurance options - 401K plan management - Remote-friendly and flexible team culture - Free lunch and fully-stocked kitchen in our South Bay office - Additional perks: monthly wellness stipend, office set up allowance, company retreats, and more to come as we scale - The opportunity to work on one of the most interesting, impactful problems of the decade

Visit our website to apply for a position.

Excited to see you at CVPR! We’ll be at booth 1404. Come see us to talk more about roles.

Our team consists of people with diverse software and academic experiences. We work together towards one common goal: integrating the software, you'll help us build into hundreds of millions of vehicles.

As the MLE, you will collaborate with researchers to perform research operations using existing infrastructure. You will use your judgment in complex scenarios and help apply standard techniques to various technical problems. Specifically, you will:

• Characterize neural network quality, failure modes, and edge cases based on research data
• Maintain awareness of current trends in relevant areas of research and technology
• Coordinate with researchers and accurately convey the status of experiments
• Manage a large number of concurrent experiments and make accurate time estimates for deadlines
• Review experimental results and suggest theoretical or process improvements for future iterations
• Write technical reports indicating qualitative and quantitative results to external parties

As a systems engineer for perception safety, your primary responsibility will be to define and ensure the safety performance of the perception system. You will be working in close collaboration with perception algorithm and sensor hardware development teams.

Location Seattle, WA

Description Futures Design is the advanced concept design and incubation team within Amazon’s Device and Services Design Group (DDG). We are responsible for exploring and defining think (very) big opportunities globally and locally — so that we can better understand how new products and services might enrich the lives of our customers and so that product teams and leaders can align on where we're going and why we're going there. We focus on a 3–10+ year time frame, with the runway to invent and design category-defining products and transformational customer experiences. Working with Amazon business and technology partners, we use research, design, and prototyping to guide early product development, bring greater clarity to engineering goals, and develop a UX-grounded point of view.

We're looking for a Principal Design Technologist to join the growing DDG Futures Design team. You thrive in ambiguity and paradigm shifts– remaking assumptions of how customers engage, devices operate, and builders create. You apply deep expertise that spans design, technology, and product, grounding state-of-the-art emerging technologies through storytelling and a maker mindset. You learn and adapt technology trends to enduring customer problems through customer empathy, code, and iterative experimentation.

You will wear multiple hats to quickly assimilate customer problems, convert them to hypotheses, and test them using efficient technologies and design methods to build stakeholder buy-in. You’ll help your peers unlock challenging scenarios and mature the design studio’s ability to deliver design at scale across a breadth of devices and interaction modalities. You will work around limitations and push capabilities through your work. Your curiosity will inspire those around you and facilitate team growth, while your hands-on, collaborative nature will build trust with your peers and studio partners.

Captions is the AI-powered creative studio. Millions of creators around the world have used Captions to make their video content stand out from the pack and we're on a mission to empower the next billion.

Based in NYC, we are a team of ambitious, experienced, and devoted engineers, designers, and marketers. You'll be joining an early team where you'll have an outsized impact on both the product and company's culture.

We’re very fortunate to have some the best investors and entrepreneurs backing us, including Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Uncommon Projects, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, Antoine Martin, Julie Zhuo, Ben Rubin, Jaren Glover, SVAngel, 20VC, Ludlow Ventures, Chapter One, Lenny Rachitsky, and more.

Check out our latest milestone and our recent feature on the TODAY show and the New York Times.

** Please note that all of our roles will require you to be in-person at our NYC HQ (located in Union Square) **

Responsibilities:

Conduct research and develop models to advance the state-of-the-art in generative video technologies, focusing on areas such as video in-painting, super resolution, text-to-video conversion, background removal, and neural background rendering.

Design and develop advanced neural network models tailored for generative video applications, exploring innovative techniques to manipulate and enhance video content for storytelling purposes.

Explore new areas and techniques to enhance video storytelling, including research into novel generative approaches and their applications in video production and editing.

Create tools and systems that leverage machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computational techniques to generate, manipulate, and enhance video content, with a focus on usability and scalability.

Preferred Qualifications:

PhD in computer science or related field or 3+ years of industry experience.

Publication Record: Highly relevant publication history, with a focus on generative video techniques and applications. Ideal candidates will have served as the primary author on these publications.

Video Processing Skills: Strong understanding of video processing techniques, including video compression, motion estimation, and object tracking, with the ability to apply these techniques in generative video applications.

Expertise in Deep Learning: Proficiency in deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or similar, with hands-on experience in designing, training, and deploying neural networks for video-related tasks.

Strong understanding of Computer Science fundamentals (algorithms and data structures).

Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans

Anything you need to do your best work

We’ve done team off-sites to places like Paris, London, Park City, Los Angeles, Upstate NY, and Nashville with more planned in the future.

Captions provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Please note benefits apply to full time employees only.

Redmond, Washington, United States

Overview Are you interested in developing and optimizing deep learning systems? Are you interested in designing novel technology to accelerate their training and serving for cutting edge models and applications? Do you want to scale large Artificial Intelligence models to their limits on massive supercomputers? Are you interested in being part of an exciting open-source library for deep learning systems? The DeepSpeed team is hiring!

Microsoft's DeepSpeed is an open-source library built on the PyTorch (machine learning framework) ecosystem that combines numerous research innovations and technology advancements to make deep learning efficient and easier to use. DeepSpeed can parallelize across thousands of GPUs and train models with trillions of parameters. Our OSS (Open Source Software) has powered many advanced models like MT-530B and BLOOM, and it supports unprecedented scale and speed for both training and inference.

The DeepSpeed team is also part of the larger Microsoft AI at Scale initiative, which is pioneering the next-generation AI capabilities that are scaled across the company’s products and AI platforms.

The DeepSpeed team is looking for a Senior Researcher in Redmond, WA with passion for innovations and for building high-quality systems that will make significant impact inside and outside of Microsoft. Our team is highly collaborative, innovative, and end-user obsessed. We are looking for candidates with systems skills and passionate about driving innovations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of deep learning systems. We value creativity, agility, accountability, and a desire to learn new technologies.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities Excels in one or more subareas and gains expertise in a broad area of research. Identifies and articulates problems in an area of research that are academically novel and may directly or indirectly impact business opportunities. Collaborates with other relevant researchers or research groups to contribute to or advance a research agenda. Researches and develops an understanding of the state-of-the-art insights, tools, technologies, or methods being used in the research community. Expands collaborative relationships with relevant product and business groups inside or outside of Microsoft and provides expertise or technology to them.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Overview Microsoft Research (MSR), a leading industrial research laboratory, comprises over 1,000 computer scientists working across the United States, United Kingdom, China, India, Canada, and the Netherlands.

We are currently seeking Principal Researcher in the area of Artificial Specialized Intelligence and artificial general intelligence located in Vancouver, British Columbia.

This is an opportunity to drive an ambitious research agenda while collaborating with diverse teams to push for novel applications of those areas.

Over the past 30 years, our scientists have not only conducted world-class computer science research but also integrated advanced technologies into our products and services, positively impacting millions of lives and propelling Microsoft to the forefront of digital transformation.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities Identifying and driving new research directions, creating new technologies and collaborating with Microsoft product groups and external partners to deploy them in real-world settings. Stay current with the latest trends, research, and developments in AI, machine learning, and system architecture to ensure our systems remain at the forefront of innovation. Evaluate the performance of AI-centric systems and provide recommendations for improvement and optimization. Publish research findings in peer-reviewed journals, conferences, and other relevant venues, and present research results to internal and external stakeholders. Mentor and guide researchers and engineers in their research and development efforts. Collaborate with industry partners and academic institutions to drive joint research projects and initiatives.