News and Events: Open Positions

Are you interested in interdisciplinary research and would you like to work in an interdisciplinary research institute? The ILLC is looking for an excellent PhD candidate who is interested in conducting research in an area within the ILLC that fits naturally in the Faculty of Science.

The Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine at Indiana University invites applications for one postdoctoral fellowships, available in the academic year 2020-2021, for research to be undertaken in the context of the Sawyer Seminar "Rigor: control, analysis and synthesis in historical and systematic perspectives".

The postdoc will pursue a research project related to the Sawyer Seminar theme, the concept of rigor across the scientific disciplines. The Seminar will bring together scholars from the humanities and the sciences who will trace the emergence of the terms "rigor", "control", "analysis" and "synthesis" in experimental contexts. Focusing on two key historical periods, the dawn of modern experimental sciences in the 17th century and the period of professionalization and disciplinary specification of experimentation in the 19th century, the seminar participants will study what constitutes rigor in different fields; how the concept of rigor emerged; and when it became the requirement for experimentation that it is today. Qualification: PhD in History of Science, Philosophy of Science, or a related field.

The Hybrid Intelligence Center is funded by a 10 year Zwaartekracht grant from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. The center is a collaboration of AI researchers from the VU Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam, the TU Delft, and the Universities of Groningen, Leiden, and Utrecht.

The first round of 27 PhD students will be hired by mid 2020. The 27 projects cover various areas of AI including: computational social choice, logic & cognition, language & computation.

The QuAnGIS project, a 5-year research project at the University of Utrecht that started in January 2019 funded by the European Research Commission (ERC), develops a theory about interrogative spatial concepts needed to turn geo-analytical questions into machine-readable workflows using Semantic Web, Workflow synthesis and Question-Answering (QA) technology. The focus is on 'core concepts of spatial information', field, object, network, event (Kuhn 2012), and related analytical concepts such as accessibility, exposure, density, distance and aggregation. Based on these concepts, questions can be matched with the capacity of major analytical GIS tools and data sources on the web. The project team is part of a new Geographic Information Methods (GIM) interest group within the Social Urban Transitions (SUT) research programme in the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University.

We seek a highly motivated PhD student who has a strong interest in thinking about data semantics as well as geographic analysis and GIS technology. The new PhD position in this project should focus on the information theory and technology needed to enable GIS analysts to translate (1) geographic questions into analytic workflows and (2) to retrieve corresponding resources for analysis. This involves an investigation into GIS tools and their functionality in terms of semantic concepts, as well as standard web data sources, and how both can be linked. Furthermore, it involves developing a transformation language that can be used to search over GIS workflows using question concepts. Both will be a basis for building an integrated extensible web repository about analytical tools and data sources that can be queried using questions.

There is a PhD Position in Deep Learning and Natural Language Generation as part of the EU funded NL4XAI Innovative Training Network on Interactive Natural Language Technology for Explainable Artificial Intelligence.

Estimated Starting Date: April 1, 2020. Apply at https://nl4xai.eu/.

In the Theoretical Computer Science group (Chair Computer Science 8) at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universiẗat Erlangen-N̈urnberg, we have a *one-year* postdoc position available in the DFG-Project "A High Level Language for Programming and Specifying Multi-Effect Algorithms", which is concerned with monad-based semantics and program logics for side-effecting (guarded) iteration and recursion. The technical part of the project proposal can be made available on request.

The project is supervised by Sergey Goncharov and Lutz Schr̈oder. The positions are in the TV-L E13 or E14 pay scale depending on qualification of the applicant. The position is available immediately but can also be filled later.

As part of the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, 'Substructural logics for limited resources' (FT190100147), up to two PhD scholarships are available at Monash University. Primary supervision will be provided by the Future Fellow, Dr David Ripley. The PhD program runs for 3 years, and includes no coursework: it's basically hit the ground and write a dissertation. Teaching is sometimes available, for additional pay, but the scholarships themselves do not involve any teaching responsibilities.

The topic of the fellowship is substructural logic, with applications to resource sensitivity and resource management. While the PhDs to be awarded are PhDs in philosophy, there is no requirement that students have a background in philosophy.  Interdisciplinary work is very welcome in the department. It is important, however, that students have a strong background in logic or some closely related area; comfort with formal methods is a must.

The Utrecht Institute of Linguistics invites applications for a postdoc position in formal semantics, part of the project 'The Formal Semantics of Collective Categorization' (ROCKY), an ERC Advanced Grant to Prof Yoad Winter (Utrecht). The project develops models of collective reference that are theoretically grounded in linguistic, cognitive and computational theories of meaning.

ROCKY is currently offering a postdoc position with 1-4-2020 as the intended starting date. The successful candidate will work with the PI and other project members, in collaboration with Prof James Hampton (Psychology, City, University of London). We are looking for a Postdoc researcher with expertise in experimental, computational or theoretical approaches to formal semantics of natural language.

The Department of Mathematical Sciences of New Mexico State University is seeking applications for graduate student positions in our department. Students interested in Logic and Foundations will have an opportunity to work with faculty who conduct research in modal logic, algebraic logic, and duality theory. Our department is one of the few in the US conducting research in these areas. Thanks to a recent large donation, we offer very competitive packages. Applicants should be highly motivated and have a strong background in mathematics.

Applications are invited for a PhD student who wants to develop algorithms for explaining the meaning of formulas of Mathematical Logic in ordinary language. This four year position comprises 85--90% research time and 10-15% teaching time. Department of Computer Science, Utrecht University.

The Department of Computer Science at Lund University invites applications for a PhD position in computer science focused on SAT solving and combinatorial optimization.

The PhD student will be working in the research group of Jakob Nordström, which is currently in transition from KTH to a combined location at Lund University and the University of Copenhagen on either side of the Oresund bridge.

Much of the activities of the research group revolve around the themes of efficient algorithms for satisfiability in propositional logic (SAT solving) and lower bounds on the efficiency of methods for reasoning about SAT (proof complexity). On the practical side, one problem of interest is to gain a better understanding of, and improve, the performance of current state-of-the-art SAT solvers based on conflict-driven clause learning (CDCL). We are even more interested in exploring new algebraic or geometric techniques (such as Groebner bases or pseudo-Boolean solving) that could potentially yield exponential improvements over CDCL. We also believe that there should be ample room for technology transfer with related areas such as SMT solving, constraint programming (CP), and/or mixed integer linear programming (MIP), and so the research project will likely involve such areas.

The Department of Computer Science (DIKU) at the University of Copenhagen invites applications for postdoc positions in theoretical computer science. The postdoctoral researchers will be working in the research group of Jakob Nordstrom (http://www.csc.kth.se/~jakobn/), which is currently in transition from KTH to a combined location at the University of Copenhagen and Lund University on either side of the Oresund bridge.

Much of the research in the group revolves about gaining a better theoretical understanding of powerful algorithmic paradigms such as, e.g., SAT solving, Groebner basis computations, integer linear programming, and/or semidefinite programming. This leads to classic questions in computational complexity theory — though often with new, interesting twists — but can also involve work on designing new algorithms that can exploit the power of such paradigms in practice. Our research has revealed deep, and sometimes surprising, connections to other topics such as, e.g., circuit complexity, communication complexity, and hardness of approximation, and therefore researchers in these or other related areas are more than welcome to apply.

These postdoc positions are full-time employed positions for one year with a possible (and expected) one-year extension. The expected starting date is September 2020, although this is to some extent negotiable.

The Department of Computer Science (DIKU) at the University of Copenhagen invites applications for PhD positions in theoretical computer science. The PhD students will be working in the research group of Jakob Nordstrom (http://www.csc.kth.se/~jakobn/), which is currently in transition from KTH to a combined location at the University of Copenhagen and Lund University on either side of the Oresund bridge.

Much of the research in the group revolves about gaining a better theoretical understanding of powerful algorithmic paradigms such as, e.g., SAT solving, Groebner basis computations, integer linear programming, and/or semidefinite programming. This leads to classic questions in computational complexity theory — though often with new, interesting twists — but can also involve work on designing new algorithms that can exploit the power of such paradigms in practice. Our research has revealed deep, and sometimes surprising, connections to other topics such as, e.g., circuit complexity, communication complexity, and hardness of approximation, and so the project may also involve research in these areas.

Eleven PhD positions are offered within the framework of "NL4XAI: Interactive Natural Language Technology for Explainable Artificial Intelligence". NL4XAI is a European Training Network (ETN) project, focused on the automatic generation of interactive explanations in natural language, just as humans naturally do, and as a complement to visualization tools. Each ESR will work in an individual research project in a different host institution and will participate in academic and inter-sectoral secondments at the premises of other NL4XAI's members.

We look for outstanding, motivated and team-spirited candidates to carry out a PhD within the NL4XAI ETN and who will get unique international and inter-sectoral training from prominent European researchers (from both academy and industry).

The ERC funded project 'Truth and Semantics' hosted by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bristol invites applications for a three-year position as a Research Associate (postdoc). The successful candidate should have an AOS in the Philosophy of Language/Formal Semantics and a strong background in logic.

The Truth and Semantics (TRUST) ERC Starting Grant project aims to provide a unified perspective on natural language semantics, conceived of as truth-conditional semantics, and the research on the so-called semantic paradoxes in form of theories of self-applicable truth. The Research Associate is expected to explore the role of self-referential sentences in truth-conditional semantics and its foundations. They should have a research profile formal semantics and the philosophy of language but should also possess a strong background in logic. The main tasks are to produce peer-reviewed scientific articles and other project outputs, and participate in organising the project's events.

The Department of Computer Science at Lund University invites applications for a postdoc position in computer science focused on SAT solving and combinatorial optimization.

The postdoctoral researcher will be working in the research group of Jakob Nordström, which is currently in transition from KTH to a combined location at Lund University and the University of Copenhagen on either side of the Oresund bridge.

Much of the activities of the research group revolve around the themes of efficient algorithms for satisfiability in propositional logic (SAT solving) and lower bounds on the efficiency of methods for reasoning about SAT (proof complexity). On the practical side, one problem of interest is to gain a better understanding of, and improve, the performance of current state-of-the-art SAT solvers based on conflict-driven clause learning (CDCL). We are even more interested in exploring new algebraic or geometric techniques (such as Groebner bases or pseudo-Boolean solving) that could potentially yield exponential improvements over CDCL. We also believe that there should be ample room for technology transfer with related areas such as SMT solving, constraint programming (CP), and/or mixed integer linear programming (MIP), and therefore researchers in these or other related areas are more than welcome to apply.

The department of People and Technology, Roskilde University, invites applications for a position as PhD of Big Data. The PhD student will be part of the Centre for Big Data, which is an interdisciplinary research centre focusing on big data analytics, methodologies, modelling, big data learning and visualisations of big data in different contexts.

The Philosophy Program in the Department of Politics, Media, and Philosophy at La Trobe University is looking to appoint a Level B continuing Lecturer. The position is open with regards to area of specialisation.

Philosophy at La Trobe has a long and distinguished history of excellence, with many internationally prominent philosophers having worked at La Trobe. La Trobe has made strong hires in recent years aimed at renewing the Philosophy Program, with the ambition of returning the program in time to a 4 in ERA and continuing its legacy as one of the strongest and most innovative Philosophy programs in Australia. This appointment is part of the University's ongoing commitment to that process of renewal.

This is a call for 13 PhD-positions starting on 1st of June 2020 as the key component of the Research Training Group „Situated Cognition“. The RTG is based at the Department of Philosophy II and the Faculty of Psychology at Ruhr-University Bochum as well as at the Institute of Cognitive Science and the Department of Philosophy at Osnabrück University.

All PhD positions are essentially interdisciplinary with an emphasis on one of the subjects involved, i.e. philosophical theory formation, experimental psychology or neuroscience. Applicants have to apply for one of the suggested projects (max. two with indication of preference). In addition, applicants are encouraged to submit their own original project proposal in one of the theoretical areas, as long as the proposal fits the RTG?s guiding idea.

The Open University of the Netherlands is looking for a PhD student, who will work on formal verification of low-level security properties of compiled binaries. The position is fully funded (4 years). Remuneration is according to the collective labor agreement in the Netherlands, starting at 2325 eur (pre-tax).

For more information & applications (cover letter+CV) address to fvb at ou.nl. The position will remain open until fulfilled.

The Logic Group of the Mathematical Institute of the University of Bern is seeking applications for a PhD student on the Swiss National Science Foundation funded project "Hidden Quantifiers" to conduct research in the areas of universal algebra, proof theory, and non-classical logics. Applicants should be highly motivated and have a strong background in mathematics and logic.

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 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 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.