Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Machine LearningUniversity

central Oxford

We are seeking a full-time Postdoctoral Research Assistant to join Torr Vision Group at the Department of Engineering Science, central Oxford. The post is funded by Coefficient Giving  and is fixed-term to the 30th June 2027.

We are seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to investigate the safety, security, control, and capabilities of advanced AI systems, with a particular focus on increasingly autonomous and agentic models. The research will examine frontier AI systems that interact with operating systems, APIs, software tools, other agents, and complex environments, moving beyond text generation towards systems capable of planning, pursuing objectives, and executing long-horizon tasks.

A central focus will be agentic safety, adversarial robustness, and AI control. This includes agent hijacking, prompt injection, adversarial manipulation, unsafe tool use, oversight evasion, and transferable attacks that generalise across agents, models, tasks, and environments. We are particularly interested in building agentic systems that can autonomously discover, test, and evaluate general attack strategies against other AI agents, helping identify systematic vulnerabilities rather than attacks specific to a single model or setting.

Candidates should possess a PhD (or be near completion) in PhD in Computer Science, AI, Security, or a related field. You will have a Strong background in machine learning and/or computer security and Experience working with LLMs or agent-based systems.

Informal enquiries may be addressed to [email protected]

For more information about working at the Department, see www.eng.ox.ac.uk/about/work-with-us/

Only online applications received before midday on the 9 October 2026  can be considered. You will be required to upload a covering letter/supporting statement, including a brief statement of research interests (describing how past experience and future plans fit with the advertised position), CV and the details of two referees as part of your online application.

The Department holds an Athena Swan Bronze award, highlighting its commitment to promoting women in Science, Engineering and Technology

Machine Learning, AI Safety, agentic safety

£39,424 to £47,779 per annum