PhD candidate in the area of causal discovery with applications in biology | University of Amsterdam Informatics Institute

The Faculty of Science occupies a leading position internationally in its fields of research and participates in a large number of cooperative programs with universities, research institutes and businesses. The faculty has a student body of around 3,000 and 1,500 members of staff, spread over eight research institutes and a number of faculty-wide support services. A considerable part of the research is made possible by external funding from Dutch and international organizations and the private sector. The Faculty of Science offers thirteen Bachelor's degree programs and eighteen Master’s degree programs in the fields of the exact sciences, computer science and information studies, and life and earth sciences.

Since September 2010, the whole faculty has been housed in a brand new building at the Science Park in Amsterdam. The instalment of the faculty has made the Science Park one of the largest centers of academic research in the Netherlands.

The Informatics Institute (IvI) is one of the large research institutes with the faculty, with a focus on complex information systems divided in two broad themes: “Computational Systems” and “Intelligent Systems.” The institute has a prominent international standing and is active in a dynamic scientific area, with a strong innovative character and an extensive portfolio of externally funded projects.

The Informatics Institute at the University of Amsterdam invites applications for a fully funded position for a PhD student in the area causal discovery with applications in biology. The position is within the Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS) Group, led by Prof. Dr. Max Welling, and will be supervised by Dr. Joris Mooij

Project description

The research will focus on the development of new theory and efficient algorithms for robust discovery of causal relationships and estimation of causal effects from data, with a strong focus on applications in molecular biology (for example, using gene or protein expression data).

Requirements

Applicants must have a master's degree in computer science, mathematics, physics, artificial intelligence or a closely related area.

In addition, a successful candidate should have:

1. excellent math skills

2. good programming skills in at least one of the following languages: C++, MatLab, R or Python

3. good knowledge of modern machine learning methods (specific knowledge of Bayesian methods, probabilistic graphical modeling or causal discovery methods is a plus)

4. excellent oral and written communication skills

5. commitment and a cooperative attitude

Further information

The successful candidate will be based in the Intelligent Systems Lab Amsterdam (ISLA) within the Informatics Institute at the University of Amsterdam. The institute was recently ranked among the top 50 computer science departments in the world by the 2011 QS World University IT Rankings. ISLA consists of 20 members of faculty, 20 post-doctoral researchers, and more than 50 PhD students. Members of the lab are actively pursuing a variety of research initiatives, including machine learning, decision-theoretic planning and learning, causal discovery, multi-agent systems, human-computer-interaction, natural language processing, information retrieval, and computer vision.

Appointment

Starting date: 1 January 2014 (later starting date is possible). The appointment will be on a temporary basis for a period of 4 years (initial appointment will be for a period of 18 months and after satisfactory evaluation it can be extended for a total duration of 4 years) and should lead to a dissertation (PhD thesis). An educational plan will be drafted that includes attendance of courses and (international) meetings. The PhD student is also expected to assist in teaching of undergraduates.

Based on a full-time appointment (38 hours per week) the gross monthly salary will range from €2,083 in the first year to €2,664 in the last year. There are also secondary benefits, such as 8% holiday allowance per year and the end of year allowance of 8.3%. The Collective Employment Agreement (CAO) of the Dutch Universities is applicable.

Some of the things we have to offer:

1. competitive pay and excellent benefits

2. extremely friendly working environment

3. high-level of interaction

4. location near the city center (10 minutes by bicycle) of one of Europe's most beautiful and lively cities

5. international environment (10+ nationalities in the group)

6. access to high-end computing facilities (cluster with 4,000+ cores)

7. brand-new building

Since Amsterdam is a very international city where almost everybody speaks and understands English, candidates need not be afraid of the language barrier.

Applications will be accepted until 1 October 2013.