Postdoctoral Researcher: Brain-inspired Machine Learning (junior) at the Donders Centre for Cognition (1.0 FTE)

• Employment: 1.0 FTE
• Gross monthly salary: € 3,821 - € 5,230
• Faculty of Social Sciences
• Required background: PhD
• Application deadline: 6 March 2022

Would you like to contribute to the development of human-like AI systems and new intelligent technology? Then you have a part to play as a junior postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Centre for Cognition. Join an exciting and vibrant young team of experts in machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics, take leadership responsibilities and considerably increase your research network. 

The Donders Institute is looking for an early career postdoctoral researcher on brain-inspired machine learning for DEEPSELF,  a joint project between the Donders Institute (Netherlands, supervision: Pablo Lanillos) and Tübingen University (Germany, supervision: Martin Butz), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). DEEPSELF is an interdisciplinary project that aims to study the emergence of the agency metacognition ability by learning hierarchical predictive encodings of events.

As a postdoctoral researcher, you will be in charge of developing new brain-inspired machine learning models to allow a robot to learn hierarchical event codes from sensorimotor experience and plan future actions using these event codes. These metacognitive abilities will be tested in robotic experiments investigating the emergence of  'agency' on three levels of abstraction based on human science findings. Agency appears to enable us to learn, discern and anticipate the consequences of our actions. What should be the internal representation that the agent should learn to plan in different temporal scales? And how we can enable robots to answer "Did I do it?". These are some of the questions that will be addressed in the DeepSelf project, which is framed in the concepts of Hierachical Deep Learning, Event Segmentation Theory, Robot learning, Metacognition and Agency.

You will work in an international project team in close collaboration with two PhD candidates and the principal investigators. You will join an exciting and vibrant young team of experts in machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics, and become part of a big community of ~20 interdisciplinary research projects under the Active Self DFG priority programme umbrella. Thus, you will have the opportunity to take leadership responsibilities and considerably increase the research network. Furthermore, you will participate in summer schools and events organised within the framework of the priority programme. After completion of the project, you will have opportunities to continue in academia and industry.

We strongly encourage submissions from different representative minorities.

Profile

• You hold a PhD in machine learning or robot learning.
• You have experience with probabilistic deep learning.
• You have good mathematical skills.
• Knowledge of any of the following topics is desirable: active inference, predictive coding, state representation learning, reinforcement learning, control as inference.
• Having experience working with robots and/or in cognitive science is a plus.

We are

You will join the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour and the Department of Artificial Intelligence at Radboud University (Nijmegen, Netherlands). You will have the opportunity to collaborate and interact with renowned experts in multiple fields and benefit from the exciting growing research environment at the European Lab for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) Nijmegen Unit.

The Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour is a world-class interfaculty research centre that houses more than 700 researchers devoted to understanding the mechanistic underpinnings of the human mind. Research at the Donders Institute is focused on four themes: 1. Language and communication , 2. Perception, action and control , 3. Plasticity and memory , 4. Neural computation and neurotechnology . The Donders Institute has been assessed by an international evaluation committee as 'excellent' and is internationally recognised as 'a very stimulating environment for top researchers, as well as for young talent'. The Donders Institute fosters a collaborative, multidisciplinary, supportive research environment with a diverse international staff. English is the lingua franca at the Institute.

The Department of Artificial Intelligence focuses on the development of human-like AI systems and new intelligent technology. Our group investigates computational principles that underlie natural intelligence and uses these principles to develop more capable and efficient intelligent machines. The department is responsible for the successful educational programme in cognitive AI, which currently hosts about 600 AI students, and aims to develop the next generation of responsible AI systems. The department also operates the Robot Lab which hosts several robots (e.g. humanoids, industrial arms) and has significant computational resources at its disposal for developing deep learning models and simulating neural networks, including GPU clusters.

Radboud University
We want to get the best out of science, others and ourselves. Why? Because this is what the world around us desperately needs. Leading research and education make an indispensable contribution to a healthy, free world with equal opportunities for all. This is what unites the more than 24,000 students and 5,600 employees at Radboud University. And this requires even more talent, collaboration and lifelong learning. You have a part to play!

We offer

• Employment for 1.0 FTE.
• The gross monthly salary amounts to €3,821 at the start of your appointment, based on a 38-hour working week (salary scale 11.0 ). The salary will increase to a maximum of €4,093 during your three years of employment (salary scale 11.2 ). Please note: If employment commences before you have been officially been awarded with your doctorate, you will be placed on scale 10.3 , with a gross full-time salary of €3,282 as per faculty regulations.
• You will receive 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
• It concerns a temporary employment for three years.
• You will be able to use our Dual Career and Family Care Services . Our Dual Career and Family Care Officer can assist you with family-related support, help your partner or spouse prepare for the local labour market, provide customized support in their search for employment  and help your family settle in Nijmegen.
• Working for us means getting extra days off. In case of full-time employment, you can choose between 29 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the legally allotted 20.

Additional employment conditions
Work and science require good employment practices. This is reflected in Radboud University's primary and secondary employment conditions . You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself, for example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a reimbursement for your sports subscription. And of course, we offer a good pension plan. You are given plenty of room and responsibility to develop your talents and realise your ambitions. Therefore, we provide various training and development schemes.
Would you like more information?

For questions about the position, please contact Pablo Lanillos, Tenured Assistant Professor at [email protected] .

Practical information and applications
You can apply until 6 March 2022, exclusively using the button below. Kindly address your application to Pablo Lanillos. Please fill in the application form and attach the following documents:

• A letter of motivation.
• Your CV.
• The contact details of two referees who have agreed to provide a reference.

The interviews will take place in the second week of March. You would preferably begin employment as soon as possible.
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