News and Events: Open Positions

The Department of Philosophy is currently seeking to strengthen her profile in the broad area of the philosophy of technology. Artificial Intelligence, smart cities, robotics, or manipulative online practices: the current technological, social, and political transformations on the basis of new information and communication technologies affect almost every part of society and of our daily lives. Whether they concern the future of work, equal access to information and services, the relationship between citizens and democratic government, or between consumers and their technological surroundings: a broad range of ethical and philosophical issues concerning technologies and the ways in which they challenge our self-understanding is at the center of today’s debates.

Have you recently completed (or are you about to complete) your PhD in AI, doing formal work in an area such as Multiagent Systems or Knowledge Representation? Are you excited about recent developments at the interface of AI with Economics taking place in the Computational Social Choice and Algorithmic Game Theory research communities? Can you see yourself working in an interdisciplinary environment, in a team with smart and friendly colleagues?

The Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing invites applications for Simons-Berkeley Research Fellowships for the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters. Simons-Berkeley Research Fellowships are intended for up-and-coming researchers who are getting close to defending their PhD degree or are at most 6 years past it at the start of the academic year 2020-21. This includes researchers who already hold junior faculty or postdoctoral positions. In particular, applicants who expect to have postdoc positions at other institutions are encouraged to apply to spend one semester as a Simons-Berkeley Fellow, subject to the approval of the home institution.

In each semester of residence, each Fellow will normally participate in at least one of the ongoing programs at the Institute. We wish to highlight the semester program "Satisfiability: Theory, Practice, and Beyond", which will run in the spring of 2021 in parallel with "Theoretical Foundations of Computer Systems".

A postdoc position is available to work on the ERC Consolidator funded project "dSynMA: Distributed Synthesis from Single to Multiple Agents".

The aims of the project are to develop theoretical foundations that will enable to apply reactive synthesis from temporal specifications to work for multiple agents. This includes studying two-player games and their solutions, modelling solutions for interacting agents, and studies of temporal logic.

The University of Barcelona offers a PhD position in collaboration with the Catalan industrial sector. The industrial component of the PhD revolves around the development and verification of legal software in Coq within Formal Vindications SL. This work will be complemented with the formalization of parts of logic/mathematics. We are looking for candidates with a background in theoretical computer science and/or mathematical logic. Apart from the required knowledge of Coq and Ocaml, other IT skills are recommended, especially knowledge/experience with other functional programming languages.

We offer a three-year position in the PhD program in Mathematics and Computer Science which is located in the very center of Barcelona. The group where this project will be embedded works on ordinal analysis via modal logic and reflection principles; we expect collaboration with the main group to arise, but we are open to alternative proposals. The PhD student will be part of a large and active research group led by Joost J. Joosten.  If after three years the PhD has not been finished, but there is realistic expectations that it will be finished soon, the company will consider continuing the position in its major characteristics. Apart from the usual PhD trajectory, the candidates will participate in cutting edge formalization developments in an industrial setting.

IST Austria offers fully-funded PhD positions in the natural and mathematical sciences in a world-class research environment on the outskirts of Vienna. Students with a bachelor’s or master’s degree in biology, neuroscience, mathematics, computer science, physics, cryptography and related areas are encouraged to apply. IST Austria offers internationally competitive salaries, full health benefits, and subsidized on-campus housing in the first year.

IST Austria organizes a Student Open Day on Friday, November 22^nd 2019, where applicants  will get the chance to meet the research groups through lab tours and “Meet the Research Group” sessions, organized by our professors, PhD students, and postdocs. You can also discover the campus through a campus tour and learn about the history and future of IST Austria.

The Department of Cognitive Studies (DEC) at Ecole Normale Supérieure is inviting applications for its graduate programs in cognitive science. Our training offer includes: a fully-funded 5-year PhD program and a fully-funded extended 3-year Masters program (which can be followed by a 3-year doctoral grant at ENS or elsewhere in France, conditioned on a mid-term evaluation).

The researchers Frank Stephan, Yang Yue and Sanjay Jain at the National University of Singapore want to hire on their grant "Effective representations of algebraic structures" one research fellow in the areas of Mathematical Logic and Theoretical Computer Science. The candidate will do mathematical research in the areas of recursion theory, inductive inference, model theory and effective algebra; the applicant is expected do research and write papers inline with the research programme approved by the MOE for these positions. The applicant should also be able to present the results found at scientific conferences.

Job requirements: Good knowledge of mathematics in general and the research areas above in particular. Prior publications and a PhD in mathematical logic or theoretical computer science are expected. The applicant should know at least some of the research areas of recursion theory, inductive inference, model theory and effective algebra and should be able to work in new areas of research.The applicant should have at least 3 years of experience in research; research done as masters or PhD student counts towards this requirement.

The UCLA Department of Philosophy is offering a one year (with the possibility of a one-year renewal) post-doctoral research fellowship to a recent Ph.D. in philosophy whose primary area of research lies in logic, language, or mind.  One or two postdoctoral fellowships will be available depending on funding, and the post-docs are for one-year with the possibility of a one-year renewal. The position will coincide with a research cycle of workshops, conferences, and visitors in these areas made possible by a recent gift to the department.

The mathematics department of Utrecht University invites applications for two (tenure track) assistant professorships. We are primarily interested in candidates working in algebraic or differential geometry,but candidates from research areas in logic with clear connections to geometry (in particular model theory, category/topos theory, infinity categories, HoTT) will also be considered, as will applications from other neighbouring areas. We are looking for young scientists that are eager to play a committed role in all aspects of academic life.

This is an appointment of 0.8 - 1.0 FTE for the duration of five years (Tenure Track). The position will be subject to a mid-term evaluation after approximately 2.5 years and an end-term evaluation. Following a positive evaluation the position will become permanent after 5 years. In case of sufficient seniority, the position can be tenured at a higher level. Female candidates will also be considered for a Westerdijk Fellowship, an attractive startup package created by the Faculty of Science in order to increase its number of female scientists.

There is a PhD position in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at Delft University of Technology in a challenging project on algorithms for scheduling under uncertainty, and making these work for the Dutch Railways (NS).

The PhD will join a team that considers the operational scheduling of matching arriving train units at a yard to departures, and their routing, shunting, cleaning and maintenance and repair. Given the time tables of the involved railway companies, a plan has to be made for this rolling stock as well as for the people involved. As the number of train units grows, these plans will need to use all resources available (tracks, people), which makes the problem of finding feasible plans more and more difficult. The main tasks for the PhD student are to work on algorithms and artificial intelligence techniques from the fields of constraint programming, mathematical optimisation, evolutionary algorithms and/or reinforcement learning to solve such scheduling problems, and to deepen our understanding of these techniques and how they can be successfully combined.

The Department of Linguistics at Stony Brook University has a job opening for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Computational Linguistics. The ideal candidate will have a research program that addresses concerns in one or more core areas of linguistics from a mathematical/computational perspective.

The Department of Mathematical Sciences at New Mexico State University invites applicants for a tenure-track faculty appointment to be filled at the Assistant Professor level beginning August, 2020. The position will support research and teaching needs in the department, with research focus in Foundations of Mathematics. Individuals interested in contributing to a diverse academic community are particularly encouraged. 

Candidates must have a Ph.D. in Mathematics or related area prior to August, 2020 and are expected to demonstrate outstanding research potential, excellent communication skills, and a commitment to excellence in teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Expected duties include graduate and undergraduate teaching, sustained research, supervision of graduate students, submission of competitive external funding proposals, and some university service.

The Knowledge Representation and Verification Groups at the Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, jointly offer a PhD Scholarship for work at the intersection Logic, Knowledge Representation, and Databases.

The PhD student will be supervised by Professors Frank Wolter and Boris Konev and Dr Martin Zimmermann and will closely collaborate with Postdoctoral Researchers working on the new EPSRC-funded research project 'quantMD: Ontology-Based Management of Many-Dimensional Quantitative Data', a joint project with Professor Michael Zakharyaschev at University of London. The PhD student on this project will have a good background in one of the following areas: computational logic, mathematical logic, databases, or knowledge representation and reasoning.

The Section on Formal Methods for Safe and Secure Systems at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science (DTU Compute) invites applications for an Associate/Assistant Professor in Formal Methods for Safe and Secure Systems. The position is available from July 1, 2020 or according to mutual agreement.

We are seeking applications for a fully-funded, 4-year PhD position in the Section of Theoretical Computer Science of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA). The goal of the project is the development of techniques for reasoning about automata that transform finite and infinite words (also known as transducers). In this project, we will use and extend techniques from automata theory, combinatorics on words, logic, coalgebra and term rewriting. The principal investigator of this project is Joerg Endrullis with a background in term rewriting and automata theory. We will collaborate with Helle Hansen (TU Delft) and Femke van Raamsdonk and Jasmin Blanchette (VUA) in their own areas of expertise.

Applicants should have a masters degree in computer science, mathematics, logic, or a closely related area. Knowledge of automata theory, coalgebra, logic, term rewriting or lambda calculus is considered an advantage.

There are two post-doctoral research positions open, one at Oxford and one at Cambridge, to work on a new EPSRC-funded project on "Resources and co-Resources: A junction between semantics and descriptive complexity" which is jointly led by Prof. Samson Abramsky FRS at Oxford, and Prof. Anuj Dawar at the University of Cambridge. The positions are available to start as soon as possible, and are funded for 36 months.

The project seeks to explore ways in which methods from the study of logic and algorithms (specifically finite model theory and descriptive complexity) can be combined with methods from semantics (such as category theory) to build a cohesive algebraic theory of resources. This builds on recent work obtaining categorical accounts of essential constructions in finite model theory (by Abramsky, Dawar and Wang and Abramsky and Shah), as well as categorical accounts of quantum resources (by Abramsky, Barbosa, de Silva and Zapata). This work made essential use of monads -- seen as encapsulating quantum and other resources -- and of comonads, which encapsulate 'coresources', i.e. ways of limiting access to a structure corresponding to definability in various logics. The project will seek to apply these new tools to major results in descriptive complexity, to expand them to cover other important constructions, to find ways of combining accounts of quantum resources and logical co-resources, and to build a general theory of these.

There are separate application processes for applying for the two positions. Details of these and further information may be found at these webpages: http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/news/1735-full.html http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/23436/. For further questions or enquiries, contact samson.abramsky at cs.ox.ac.uk or anuj.dawar at cl.cam.ac.uk.

We are seeking applications for a fully-funded, 4-year PhD position in the Section of Theoretical Computer Science of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA). The goal of the project is the development of techniques for reasoning about automata that transform finite and infinite words (also known as transducers). In this project, we will use and extend techniques from automata theory, combinatorics on words, logic, coalgebra and term rewriting.

The Ethics and Philosophy of Technology Section at Delft University of Technology is currently developing a "Critical Thinking for Engineers program" (CTfE) within the context of the 4TU.CEE. To achieve the project goals, we are looking for a FULLTIME POSTDOC for TWO YEARS who combines thorough knowledge in argumentation theory with inside acquaintance with (at least one branch of) engineering and technology. S/he should be inspired by the specific niche CTfE occupies within the field of Critical Thinking in general.

The project aims at elaborating CTfE cases; i.e., developing sound argumentation in favor or against descriptive or normative engineering claims. It also aims at an inventory of the CTfE needs and wishes at the Dutch Technical Universities; and it also aims at an analysis of the overlap between engineering ethics and CTfE. The education goals of this project are: ready-made course material that meets the needs of teachers at the four Dutch Universities of Technology. This material should consist of: adjustable lecture sheets for adaptable CTfE courses; accompanying lecture notes or a textbook manuscript (outlines of the sheets and notes have been developed already); elaborated cases from all branches of engineering, serving the purpose of illustration and exercise or assignment; modules for blended learning; multiple choice exam questions and other examination material on paper and online.

The Postdoc to be appointed will contribute to all these tasks in close collaboration with other staff and student assistants and will start in January, 1st, 2020.

The Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University seeks applications for a full-time, tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor beginning Fall 2020. The area of specialization should be mathematical logic. We are particularly interested in candidates who bridge philosophy, mathematics, and computer science, and who connect with some of the Department'™s current research areas, including category theory, proof theory, homotopy type theory, formal verification, automated reasoning, modal logic, and history and philosophy of mathematics.

The Department strongly supports interdisciplinary and collaborative research, and we encourage individuals from diverse intellectual and scientific backgrounds to apply. The standard teaching load is 3.5 courses per year (7 courses over four semesters), both undergraduate and graduate courses. The position also requires advising graduate students, and other non-teaching responsibilities. The Department also offers a PhD in Pure and Applied Logic, permitting supervision of logic graduate students pursuing careers in mathematics, computer science, or industry.

The University of Toronto seeks a Postdoctoral Researcher to conduct collaborative research outlined in an awarded NFRFE-2018 New Frontier in Research proposal, titled 'Rebuilding the Foundations of Bayesian Statistics on Nonstandard Analysis' (PI: Daniel M. Roy).

Our proposal aims to rebuild the mathematical foundations of Bayesian statistics using tools from mathematical logic and nonstandard analysis that were unavailable at the time Bayesian analysis was formalized. Our goal is to tackle one of the grand challenges in mathematical statistics: fully characterize the relationship between Bayesian and frequentist inference, the two dominant approaches to statistical inference. In recent work, replacing the standard model of countably additive probability theory with a nonstandard model allowed us to settle a longstanding open problem of deriving a Bayesian characterization of frequentist extended admissibility. We believe that rapid progress on the grand challenge can be achieved by committing additional resources to this unconventional approach.

The Department of Physics at the Faculty of Science of the University of Helsinki invites applications for a
Professor or Assistant/Associate Professor in Quantum Information, Computing and Logic. The position is part of the University of Helsinki profiling action on Mind and Matter – foundations of information, intelligence and consciousness, aiming to strengthen new interdisciplinary research areas at the university. Applicable research topics include quantum information theory, quantum computing and applications, as well as related topics in quantum gravity and quantum field theory. The focus will be on the growing quantum interface between different subfields of physics, mathematics and computing.

The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh invites applications for Fellowships supporting visits in the Center for a term or an academic year during the year 2020-2021.The Center is pleased to announce that Nick Huggett will be the Senior Visiting Fellow for the academic year September 2020 - April 2021. We encourage applications for Postdoctoral and Visiting Fellowships from scholars whose research intersects with Professor Huggett's.

We are pleased to announce an opening for a fully funded three-year PhD position (E-13 on the German TV-L scale, full time, no teaching
obligation) at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, located at the Chair of Theoretical Computer Science. The position is within the new DFG project "Coalgebraic Model Checking", with Stefan Milius and Lutz Schröder as PIs and with Daniel Hausmann collaborating on a second project position. The aim of the project is to develop a generic framework for model checking a wide variety of logics beyond the standard relational setting, such as probabilistic, graded, or alternating-time logics, based on the successful paradigm of coalgebraic logic.

The Game Theory Group at the Technion is inviting applications for fully funded postdoctoral positions in Game Theory (broadly defined). As a postdoc in our group, you will work with a varied team comprised of both leading researchers and young, highly motivated colleagues, all of whom are passionate about topics at the intersection of computer science, economics, operations research and game theory.

If you fit this profile and are passionate about an academic research career path, we would love to hear from you. Women are particularly encouraged to apply. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until positions are filled.

The AI Lab of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels invites applications for a PhD position (or short-term postdoc position) in computer science. This position focuses on reasoning with distributed data, including topics such as collaborative query answering, combining pesonal and open data, incentives, trust, confidence, and complexity.

This is a topic on the edge between knowledge representation and reasoning research on the one hand and database research on the other hand.

The Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford is seeking to hire a Departmental Lecturer in theoretical computer science. Areas of particular interest include logic, verification, and algorithms. This is a fixed-term contract until 31 March 2021.

The section for Formal Methods of DTU Compute offers a 3-years PhD position starting in late 2019 or early 2020. The position is funded by the Independent Research Fund of Denmark through the project 'REDUCTO: A novel approach for the reduction of Boolean networks'. The PhD student will be co-supervised by Andrea Vandin and the Head of Section Alberto Lluch Lafuente.

Boolean networks (BN) are a graph-based well-established method to model biological systems. In order to accurately model systems, we often face models too complex to be interpreted or analyzed. The project aims at developing novel mathematically-grounded techniques and tools to reduce and simplify complex BNs. Tool support will be based on the tool ERODE, maintained by the PI.

A PhD position is available (fully funded for 4 years with the possibility of extension) at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Utah State University. The PhD position at Utah State University will be advancing and developing efficient model abstraction and state space truncation techniques for the infinite-state CTMC models. The expected starting date is early January 2020.

Applicants must have a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field. A master's degree is preferred. The successful candidate is expected to demonstrate strong background and interest in formal methods and algorithms, and preferably basic knowledge of probability and random process. He/She should be confident in independently developing academic software tools. Good writing and presentation skills in English are important as well. Knowledge of synthetic biology is preferred, but not required.