Postdoctoral fellowship (2 years) within Formal Reasoning Methods for Automated Reasoning

Department of Computing science

The Department of Computing science is characterized by world-leading research in several scientific fields and a multitude of educations ranked highly in international comparison. The department has been growing rapidly in recent years where focus on an inclusive and bottom-up driven environment are key elements in our sustainable growth.  

Our department consists of a diverse group from different nationalities, background and fields.

See more information at: www.umu.se/en/department-of-computing-science/

The department’s work on Artificial Intelligence has a strong international position, in particular on the topics of collaborative and responsible AI. In these areas, the focus is on human-AI interaction and on the ethical and societal impact of AI.  Researchers collaborate with several national and international research groups and have active links with industry and policy organisations.

Visit www.umu.se/en/research/groups/formal-methods-for-trustworthy-hybrid-intelligence-/ and www.umu.se/en/research/groups/responsible-artificial-intelligence/ for more information.

Project description

With funding from the Kempe Foundation, the project “Dealing with Misinformation through Sources Evaluation to enhance Decision-Making” aims to stretch our research on Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The overall purpose of the project is to develop formal theories and software tools to deal with misinformation. Misinformation (e.g. fake news) can be defined as false or inaccurate information that is deliberately created and is intentionally or unintentionally propagated. Misinformation has been principally studied in journalism due to its negative impact on people since it leads to poor judgments and obstructs good decision-making. Due to the openness of social networking platforms along with the potential for automation, e.g. Generative Artificial Intelligence, Chat GPT, it has had a fast propagation to a larger group of people. In recent years, to mitigate the problem of misinformation, computational detection of fake news has been widely studied, producing some promising results. This project aims to develop formal theories to develop Trustworthy AI tools that could help in the detection of misinformation.

This project is open to exploring different logic-based methods to deal with misinformation. Hence, the postdoc is encouraged to bring his or her expertise and will get the opportunity to contribute to the social problem of misinformation.

The scholarship project is financed by the Kempe Foundation. The scholarship is for two years with a starting date as agreed. The scholarship amounts to 350 000 SEK per year (around 32 000 Euros). The scholarship is not subject to tax.

Are you the person for this project? We welcome applications until May 30.

Qualifications

To qualify as a postdoctoral scholarship holder, the postdoctoral fellow is required to have completed a doctoral degree or a foreign degree deemed equivalent to a doctoral degree. This qualification requirement must be fulfilled no later than at the time of the decision about scholarship recipient.

Priority should be given to candidates who completed their doctoral degree, according to what is stipulated in the paragraph above, no later than three years prior. If there are special reasons, candidates who completed their doctoral degree prior to that may also be eligible. Special reasons include absence due to illness, parental leave, appointments of trust in trade union organizations, military service, or similar circumstances, as well as clinical practice or other forms of appointment/assignment relevant to the subject area.

Required qualifications are:

• A PhD degree in Computer Science domain or similar
• Good ability to co-operate and also take independent initiative are required.
• Strong skills in written and spoken English are required.
• Good software programming skills.

Other desirable qualifications:  

• A strong track-record of academic peer-reviewed publications.
• Knowledge on formal Artificial Intelligence theories and methods, e.g. answer set programming, formal argumentation, BDI agents.

Application

A full application should include:

• Personal letter,
• Curriculum vitae CV with publication list,
• Verified copy of doctoral degree certificate or documentation that clarifies when the degree of doctor is expected to be obtained
• Verified copies of other diplomas, list of completed academic courses and grades,
• Copy of doctoral thesis and  relevant articles,  
• Contact information to two persons willing to act as references
• Other documents that the applicant wishes to claim.

The application should be written in English (preferably) or Swedish. Your complete application, marked with reference number FS 2.1.6-897-24 should be sent electronically (in PDF format) to medel@diarie.umu.se (with reference number on the subject line). The closing date is May 30.

Further details are provided by Juan Carlos Nieves, juan.carlos.nieves@umu.se.

We look forward to receiving your application!