PhD position on Non-Monotonic Reasoning for Personal Agents

Updated: about 2 years ago
Job Type: FullTime
Deadline: 11 Feb 2022

Job description

Within the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science (EEMCS), the department of Human Media Interaction (HMI) is looking for an enthusiastic PhD candidate to work on non-monotonic reasoning for personal agents.

Digital information technology is increasingly interwoven with our society and individuals' daily lives. With these digital technologies tracking and influencing our everyday behavior, they should align with the user’s needs and values. To achieve this, personal agents need to model the user’s informational and motivational attitudes such as goals, values, norms, beliefs, and their interrelations in order to derive support actions that are aligned with the user. This is challenging because 1) conflicts may occur in the user’s motivations, and 2) the user’s state and motivations may change over time and in different contexts.

We offer a fully funded 4-year PhD position to investigate how non-monotonic reasoning techniques such as belief revision, argumentation, defeasible reasoning, inconsistency handling, and reasoning about actions can be employed for user modelling in the context of personal agents. Questions that can be addressed are for example: Which types of update operations on user models are required? Is a new norm in conflict with existing desired behaviors? Can belief revision techniques be adapted for run-time norm revision? With this we lay the foundations for flexible and value-aligned personal agents that give people agency over their lives with digital technology.

The position is associated with the Hybrid Intelligence Centre (https://www.hybrid-intelligence-centre.nl) , a 10-year Dutch national research program which investigates how we can create AI that augments, instead of replaces human intelligence.

The prospective candidates are expected to perform and publish high quality and internationally visible research, and be involved in teaching and student supervision to a limited extent.


Your profile
  • You hold or will soon hold a Master's degree (or equivalent) in computer science, artificial intelligence, or a related field;
  • You have excellent proficiency in English in speaking and writing (C1; above IELTS 7 or equivalent);
  • You have good communication skills, take initiative, and have an interest in working in a multidisciplinary environment;
  • You have interest and some experience in one or more of the following, or related topics: logic-based agents, knowledge representation and reasoning, formal methods, or non-monotonic reasoning.

Our offer

The terms of employment are in accordance with the Dutch Collective Labour Agreement for Universities (CAO) and include:

  • A fulltime PhD position for four years, with a qualifier in the first year.
  • Full status as an employee at the UT, including pension and health care benefits.
  • The salary will range from € 2.434,- (1st year) to € 3.111,- (4th year) per month, plus a holiday allowance of 8% and a year-end bonus of 8.3%;
  • A solid pension scheme;
  • A minimum of 29 leave days in case of fulltime employment, based on 38 hours a week. A week schedule of 40 hours would result in 12 extra leave days;
  • Excellent facilities for professional and personal development.
  • A friendly and welcoming research group, with attention to employee wellbeing.

Starting date of the position: between May 1st 2022 and September 1st 2022.


Information and application

Are you interested to be part of our team? Please submit your application February 11th 2022 at the latest via the ‘Apply now’ button below and include:

  • A letter of application in which you explain both your motivation and the relevance of your skills and experience for the research project. The motivational letter should be on-topic.
  • A full Curriculum Vitae including your publications (if any), awards, and working experience. Your CV should demonstrate the scope of your work and education and indicate a good fit with the stated requirements for the position.
  • An academic transcript of BSc and MSc education, including grades.
  • Your MSc thesis or the latest draft in English (or alternatively if your MSc thesis is not in English, a 5-page summary of your MSc thesis in English).
  • References (contact information) of two scientific staff members (one of whom should be the supervisor of your MSc thesis/final project) who are willing to be contacted by us.

The first interviews will be scheduled in March. Please take this into account.

For further information about the position, please contact: Dr. Birna van Riemsdijk ([email protected] ).


About the department

The Human Media Interaction (HMI) group does research into multimodal interaction: from brain computer interfaces to social robots. It is a multidisciplinary group in which computer science meets social science to investigate and design and evaluate novel forms of human-computer interaction. 

The research of our group concerns the perception-action cycle of understanding human behaviors and generating system responses, supporting an ongoing dialogue with the user. It stems from the premise that understanding the user –by automated evaluation of speech, pose, gestures, touch, facial expressions, social behaviors, interactions with other humans, bio-physical signals and all content humans create– should inform the generation of intuitive and satisfying system responses. Our focus on understanding how and why people use interactive media contributes to making interactive systems more socially capable, safe, acceptable and fun. Evaluation of the resulting systems therefore generally focuses on the perception that the user has of them and the experience that they engender. These issues are investigated through the design, implementation, and analysis of systems across different application areas and across a variety of contexts.

For further information, click here.


About the organization

The faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) uses mathematics, electronics and computer technology to contribute to the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). With ICT present in almost every device and product we use nowadays, we embrace our role as contributors to a broad range of societal activities and as pioneers of tomorrow's digital society. As part of a people-first tech university that aims to shape society, individuals and connections, our faculty works together intensively with industrial partners and researchers in the Netherlands and abroad, and conducts extensive research for external commissioning parties and funders. Our research has a high profile both in the Netherlands and internationally. It has been accommodated in three multidisciplinary UT research institutes: Mesa+ Institute, TechMed Centre and Digital Society Institute.

University of Twente (UT)

University of Twente (UT) has entered the new decade with an ambitious, new vision, mission and strategy. As ‘the ultimate people-first university of technology' we are rapidly expanding on our High Tech Human Touch philosophy and the unique role it affords us in society. Everything we do is aimed at maximum impact on people, society and connections through the sustainable utilisation of science and technology. We want to contribute to the development of a fair, digital and sustainable society through our open, inclusive and entrepreneurial attitude. This attitude permeates everything we do and is present in every one of UT's departments and faculties. Building on our rich legacy in merging technical and social sciences, we focus on five distinguishing research domains: Improving healthcare by personalised technologies; Creating intelligent manufacturing systems; Shaping our world with smart materials; Engineering our digital society; and Engineering for a resilient world.

As an employer, University of Twente offers jobs that matter. We equip you as a staff member to shape new opportunities both for yourself and for our society. With us, you will be part of a leading tech university that is changing our world for the better. We offer an open, inclusive and entrepreneurial climate, in which we encourage you to make healthy choices, for example, with our flexible, customisable conditions.



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