Abstract: In this talk, I will describe the ins and outs of getting a job as a post-doctoral researcher (“doing a post-doc”).  I will first describe a number of reasons why one might want to do a post-doc, as well as a few reasons not to do one.  I will next describe how to choose where one should apply for a post-doc.  Next, I will describe the process of how to get a job in a dream post-doc position.  I will also describe how to choose among multiple post-doc offers.  Last, I will describe how to be “successful” as a post-doc, i.e. how to make the most of your time as a post-doc and prepare for your future career.

Bio: David Held is an Assistant Professor at CMU in the Robotics Institute. Just recently, he was a post-doc at UC Berkeley working with Pieter Abbeel on deep reinforcement learning for object manipulation. He completed his Ph.D. in computer science at Stanford working with Sebastian Thrun and Silvio Savarese on perception for self-driving cars. Before Stanford, David did his Masters and undergrad in Mechanical Engineering at MIT.