Several PhD scholarships in Artificial Intelligence

The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Southern Denmark (Odense) invites applications for several PhD scholarships in computer science under the umbrella of the Danish Foundation Models initiative. 

The proposed starting date is 1 January 2025 or soon thereafter. The appointment will be made for a term of three years at a competitive salary and will follow the PhD study programme at the Faculty of Science. 

The ideal candidate has a background in or experience with one or more of the following topics:

• Natural Language Processing (NLP).
• Large Language Models (LLMs).
• Deep Learning and/or Reinforcement Learning.
• Model fine-tuning and/or preference alignment.
• Machine Learning Operations (MLOps).

The candidate is expected to hold a relevant MSc degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Physics, (Applied) Mathematics, Computational Statistics or another field that provides a sufficient degree of background in computer science, artificial intelligence, mathematics and/or data science.

Fluency in English and Python are required. 

Experience working with real-world machine learning use cases, extensive software development experience, and knowledge of machine learning frameworks (such as transformers and torch) are pluses.

MSc candidates about to complete will also be considered and should attach a statement from their supervisors regarding their impending completion. 

The successful candidate will contribute to the development of advanced language models and derived use cases by focusing on one or more of the following topics in their PhD project:

• Pre-training multilingual language models that excel at Danish.
• Supervised fine-tuning, instruction-tuning, and preference alignment.
• Developing efficient and environmentally sound model architectures.
• Developing and tuning model training on large-scale GPU clusters.
• Use cases in psychiatry, primary education, and legal application.

The successful candidate will become part of the Centre for Machine Learning. The centre is part of the Data Science & Statistics section at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. The department offers an inclusive and international working environment with state-of-the-art facilities and strong traditions for collaboration across research groups, departments and faculties, and with other organisations like educational institutions, municipalities, and companies. The degrees offered by the department include BSc and MSc degrees in Computer Science, a BSc degree in Artificial Intelligence, and an MSc degree in Data Science.

The deadline for applications: 19 December 2024.
Please see the full call, including how to apply, on www.sdu.dk