Senior Research Associate in Foundational AI Safety

Status: Full time, Fixed-term for 1 year with possibility for extension 

Location: Computer Science, Wolfson Building, Parks Road, Oxford 

Grade 8: £45,585 - £48,350 p.a. with the potential to under-fill at Grade 7 with salaries in the range of £36,024 - £44,263 p.a.

The Oxford Applied and Theoretical Machine Learning group at the Department of Computer Science has a new opening for a Postdoctoral Researcher in Foundational AI safety, working together with Professor Yarin Gal. Conducting original research, you will develop fundamental methodologies and tools in the context of real-world AI safety problems.

As a Postdoctoral Researcher, you will lead and contribute to projects aimed at developing principled and practical safe AI methods which could be used in real systems. This research requires coping with challenges such as intractable probabilistic inference and robustness. The project will involve both theoretical work as well as empirical analysis on challenging tasks.

In addition to research, this role will also assist in providing day-to-day supervision for DPhil students and research assistants, as well as support of grant applications and ongoing grant progress reporting.

The essential selection criteria are holding a PhD/DPhil in Computer Science or related discipline, together with demonstrated experience in Foundation Models (generative AI), as well as Bayesian machine learning, ML security, or general deep learning, a documented track record of the ability to conduct and complete research projects, as witnessed by published work in machine learning on the specific topics, and strong mathematical skills in probability and statistics. Good knowledge of current state-of-the-art in safe AI and frontier AI systems, as well as experience supporting junior researchers and managing projects is desired.

The closing date for applications is 12 noon on 12th June 2024. Interviews are expected to be held in June.

We are a Stonewall Top 100 Employer, Living Wage, holding an Athena Swan Bronze Award, HR excellence in Research and Race Equality Charter Bronze Award.

Our staff and students come from all over the world and we proudly promote a friendly and inclusive culture. Diversity is positively encouraged, through diversity groups and champions, for example http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/aboutus/women-cs-oxford/index.html , as well as a number of family-friendly policies, such as the right to apply for flexible working and support for staff returning from periods of extended absence, for example shared parental leave.

Demonstrating a commitment to provide equality of opportunity, we would particularly welcome applications from women and black and minority ethnic applicants who are currently under-represented within the Computer Science Department. All applicants will be judged on merit, according to the selection criteria.