HOURS PER WEEK: 30 to 40FACULTY: Faculty of ScienceDEPARTMENT: Department of Information and Computing SciencesAPPLICATION DEADLINE: 11 September 2023
Job description
Join the Artificial Intelligence and Data Science division
, the largest division of the department of Information and Computing Sciences. This division is experiencing rapid growth and we are currently looking for new colleagues to expand and complement our diverse and vibrant research groups
As an Assistant Professor in our division, you will actively engage in research, teaching and supervision in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science. You develop, coordinate, and teach courses in our BSc and/or MSc programmes, as well as supervise BSc/MSc students and PhD candidates. To develop new research collaborations and application areas, you will actively seek internal and external collaborations and acquire funding for research. You are also encouraged to publish in renowned scientific journals, newspapers, and appear in other media (e.g., radio).
To strengthen our team we are looking for colleagues who fit well with one of the research areas described below:
- Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: the design and development of safe and reliable AI systems require models, tools, and techniques to synthesise and verify such systems. You are an expert in the field of knowledge representation and reasoning with a background in formal systems, logics, and computations.
- Deep reinforcement learning: multiagent (deep) reinforcement learning techniques have been successfully applied to develop AI systems for cooperative or competitive tasks. With your expertise in this area you contribute to our research in the field of safe and efficient (multiagent) reinforcement learning.
- Explainable AI: AI systems should be able to explain their internal constructs, processes and decisions to humans in order to increase their transparency and trustworthiness. You are eager to make a valuable contribution to our research in this area, in view of your background in a topic such as the following: explainable-by-design; generation of explanations for interactions, norms, values, and decisions; and/or methods to analyse and assess explanations.
- Transfer learning: in many application fields, there is only limited well-annotated data available to learn specific tasks, while much more data is available for related tasks. This calls for either an approach with models that can learn effectively on little data, or for an approach whereby models are adapted from data-rich domains to data-poor domains. You bring expertise in the development and application of transfer learning, few-shot learning and/or domain adaptation methods within the fields of AI and Data Science.
- Text Mining and/or Information Retrieval: we are also looking to expand our existing work in the area of Information Extraction and/or Information Retrieval, which lies at the interface between NLP and Data Science.
- Natural Language Processing: we are looking for new colleagues to complement and extend our existing work in various areas of NLP and Computational Linguistics. One area of particular interest is the topic of our new AiNed project “Dealing with Meaning Variation in NLP” external link.
If you are excited to actively participate and collaborate in shaping our developing department, we look forward to receiving your application. In your application, please indicate which research area you are primarily interested in (1-6 above). In addition, you are also encouraged to indicate other potential research areas within the department to which your research could potentially be relevant.
Qualifications
You bring the following qualifications:
- a PhD degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, or a related field;
- a vision on future research directions in your own area of expertise;
- experience with, or good prospects for, acquiring external research funds;
- publications in international conferences and journals;
- experience with, or readiness to supervise PhD projects;
- experience with and enthusiasm for developing, coordinating, and teaching courses in our BSc and/or MSc programmes, and student supervision in the field of AI and Data Science;
- proficiency in English, both written and spoken.
Offer
We offer you:
- an appointment as Assistant Professor, starting with a fixed-term contract. Following a positive evaluation after 18 months, this will be converted into a permanent contract;
- a gross salary – depending on previous qualifications and experience – ranging between €4,332 and €6,737 per month for full-time employment (scales 11-12 according to the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO) Dutch Universities external link);
- 8% holiday bonus and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus;
- special perks including a PhD candidate position funded by the Department in order to further build up your research, support for traveling to conferences, and various educational and development programmes offered by our University.
In addition, Utrecht University offers excellent secondary conditions
, including an attractive retirement scheme, professional development
external link, (partly paid) parental leave, sports external link and flexible employment conditions (multiple choice model). For more information, please visit working at Utrecht University external link.
Are you an international applicant? Find out more about what our International Service desk does
and for more info about the what and how on living in the Netherlands
About the organisation
A better future for everyone. This ambition motivates our scientists in executing their leading research and inspiring teaching. At Utrecht University
, the various disciplines collaborate intensively towards major strategic themes
external link. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Pathways to Sustainability. Sharing science, shaping tomorrow external link.
At the Faculty of Science
, there are 6 departments to make a fundamental connection with: Biology, Chemistry, Information and Computing Sciences, Mathematics, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Physics. Each of these is made up of distinct institutes that work together to focus on answering some of humanity’s most pressing problems. More fundamental still are the individual research groups – the building blocks of our ambitious scientific projects.
The Department of Information and Computing Sciences
is nationally and internationally known for its research in computer science and information science. The Artificial Intelligence and Data Science division is the largest division of the department and is rapidly growing. Its research groups are:
- AI Technology for Life external link
- Algorithmic Data Analysis external link
- Data Intensive Systems external link
- Intelligent Systems external link
- Natural Language Processing external link
- Responsible AI
All groups in the division perform both fundamental and applied research. In their research, the groups have extensive collaborations within the division, the department, the faculty, and the university, as well as with other collaborators, both nationally and internationally. The division teaches in the Bachelor’s programmes “Artificial Intelligence” and “Computing Sciences”, as well as in the Master’s programmes “Artificial Intelligence”, “Applied Data Science”, “Data Science” and “Computing Science”.
Additional information
If you have any questions about the positions that you’d like us to answer, please contact Mehdi Dastani
Do you have a question about the application procedure? Please send an email to science.recruitment@uu.nl
.
Apply
Everyone deserves to feel at home
at our university. We welcome employees with a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives.
If you are enthusiastic about this position, then apply via the ‘apply now’ button.
Please enclose the following documents in English:
- a cover letter in which you address:
– your four best accomplishments;
– your research area of interest (1-6) and how this relates to your expertise. Please also indicate if you see a possibility of contributing to an additional research area within the department; - a full academic curriculum vitae, including a list of publications;
- a research vision (max two pages) and a teaching vision (max two pages);
- a list of 3 referees (name, position, institute and contact details).
- a copy of your PhD certificate.
If this specific opportunity isn’t for you, but you know someone else who may be interested, please forward this vacancy to them.
The application deadline is 11 September 2023.