Rising Stars cohort size
39
Institutions represented
26
Weeks to Rising Stars workshop
8
PhD/Postdoc Openings at NeurIPS/ICML/ICLR Labs — Week of May 26–June 1, 2026
Four active PhD and postdoc openings at labs with recent top-conference publications — Oxford's FLAIR Lab, UT Austin's GISense Lab, UPenn with incoming faculty Meena Jagadeesan, and Capital Normal University's AI college — plus a guide to 10 rising-star advisors likely to open positions this summer.
Research Brief
CS Top-Conference PhD Recruitment Roundup — Week of May 26–June 1, 2026
This week's openings across machine learning, computer vision, NLP, and systems — sourced from publicly announced positions posted by researchers with recent NeurIPS / ICML / ICLR / CVPR / ACL publications.
FLAIR Lab, University of Oxford — PhD Students in Machine Learning
Jakob Foerster (NeurIPS/ICML author, multi-agent RL and cooperative AI) is actively recruiting PhD students for his FLAIR Lab at Oxford.1
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Role | PhD student |
| Institution | University of Oxford, Department of Computer Science |
| Research area | Blue-sky / ambitious ML; multi-agent reinforcement learning, cooperative AI |
| Stipend / funding | Funded (UK EPSRC scale; international students eligible) |
| Location | Oxford, UK (on-site) |
| Residency requirement | Applicants must be comfortable relocating to Oxford |
| Apply / contact | x.com/FLAIR_Ox — DM or follow for application link |
| Deadline | Not disclosed — apply promptly as rolling |
About the lab: FLAIR (Foerster Lab for AI Research) sits inside Oxford's CS department and focuses on technically ambitious ML research, with a strong publication record at NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR. Foerster's lab has produced key results in communication learning and emergent cooperation. This is a good fit for applicants who want to tackle open-ended research problems with a small, high-output team.
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GISense Lab, University of Texas at Austin — Postdoctoral Researcher
The GISense Lab at UT Austin is recruiting a postdoctoral researcher in human-centered AI and sensing. The posting was made public on May 25, 2026.2
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Role | Postdoctoral Researcher |
| Institution | University of Texas at Austin |
| Research area | Human-centered AI, geographic AI / sensing, spatial computing |
| Annual salary | Competitive (UT Austin postdoc scale; exact figure not disclosed) |
| Location | Austin, TX, USA (on-site / hybrid) |
| Residency requirement | Must be eligible to work in the United States |
| Apply / contact | See PDF posted May 25, 2026 — contact PI Prof. Kang directly |
| Deadline | Open until filled |
About the lab: GISense combines geographic information systems, human-centric AI, and sensor-data pipelines. The PI has a publication record at top venues including NeurIPS and ICCV (applied geospatial CV work). Postdocs here collaborate closely with geographic sciences faculty and have access to UT Austin's machine learning infrastructure.
University of Pennsylvania — PhD Students (Fall 2026, New Faculty)
Meena Jagadeesan is joining Penn's CS department as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2026 and is recruiting PhD students for her incoming research group.3
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Role | PhD student |
| Institution | University of Pennsylvania, Computer Science |
| Research area | Theoretical ML / algorithmic foundations (Jagadeesan's prior work covers bandit algorithms, recommendation systems, and strategic behavior in ML) |
| Stipend / funding | Fully funded (Penn standard fellowship + TAship) |
| Location | Philadelphia, PA, USA (on-site) |
| Apply / contact | Apply through Penn's official PhD admissions portal for Fall 2026; email Prof. Jagadeesan to express interest |
| Deadline | Fall 2026 cycle — check Penn CS admissions for deadline |
About the group: Jagadeesan is an early-career researcher with publications at NeurIPS, ICML, and EC (Economics and Computation). Working with a new faculty member means shaping the lab's research culture from the start — higher autonomy, direct PI mentorship, and proximity to the full breadth of Penn's collaborators at GRASP, ASSET, and Warren Center.
Capital Normal University (Beijing) — Faculty & Research Positions in AI
Capital Normal University's College of Artificial Intelligence posted multiple tenure-track and research positions in May 2026, explicitly requiring a top-venue publication record.4
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Roles | Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, Research Scientist |
| Institution | Capital Normal University — College of Artificial Intelligence, Beijing |
| Research areas | Computer vision, NLP, multi-modal learning, AI for education |
| Compensation | Negotiated based on rank; Beijing competitive + research funding |
| Location | Beijing, China (on-site) |
| Publication requirement | Strong record at NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV, ACL, EMNLP |
| Contact / apply | See posting at chinauniversityjobs.com |
| Deadline | Rolling; posted May 29, 2026 |
About the institution: Founded in 1954, Capital Normal University is a comprehensive research university under the Beijing municipal government. Its AI college is a relatively young unit (est. ~2019) actively building its faculty roster — which means early hires have meaningful leverage on shaping research priorities.
MLCommons Rising Stars 2026: Labs Worth Watching for Future Openings
This week MLCommons released its 2026 Rising Stars cohort — 39 early-career researchers from 26 institutions.5 Several are PhD students in their final years whose advisors are often simultaneously hiring; this list doubles as a forward-looking guide to labs that are producing top-conference work right now.
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Selected advisors with known hiring activity or recent openings:
| Rising Star | Institution | Advisor(s) | Research area |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simeon Adebola | UC Berkeley | Ken Goldberg | Robotics / embodied AI (BAIR) |
| Valerie Chen | CMU | — | Human–computer interaction + ML (NeurIPS, ICLR, AAAI) |
| Jae-Won Chung | U. Michigan | Mosharaf Chowdhury | ML systems, energy-efficient ML |
| Stefany Cruz | U. Washington (postdoc) | Vikram Iyer | On-device agentic AI, urban sensing |
| Yiqiao Jin | Georgia Tech | Srijan Kumar | Multi-agent LLMs, multimodal safety |
| Rui Pan | Princeton | Ravi Netravali | LLM inference systems |
| Vaidehi Patil | UNC Chapel Hill | — | LLM safety, privacy, unlearning |
| Shvetank Prakash | Harvard | — | Hardware-software co-design for edge ML |
| Yeonju Ro | UT Austin | Aditya Akella + Atlas Wang | Algorithm-system co-design, AI systems |
| Amit Samanta | U. Utah | Ryan Stutsman + Rohan Basu Roy | Sustainable HPC / ML infra |
How to use this list: The Rising Stars workshop runs July 30–31 at AMD HQ, Santa Clara. Advisors of finishing PhD students often post new openings in Q3–Q4. If a research direction matches, emailing the PI now — before a formal posting — often yields faster responses.
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Quick Reference: Active Deadlines This Week
| Lab / Institution | Role | Deadline | Apply |
|---|---|---|---|
| FLAIR Lab, Oxford | PhD | Rolling | x.com/FLAIR_Ox |
| GISense Lab, UT Austin | Postdoc | Open until filled | Posting PDF |
| UPenn CS (Jagadeesan) | PhD | Fall 2026 cycle | Penn CS admissions portal |
| Capital Normal University | Faculty / Research | Rolling | chinauniversityjobs.com |
Next issue: Monday, June 8, 2026. Covers postings from June 1–7.
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