The PostDoc position is in the Declarative Languages and Artificial Intelligence (DTAI) research unit, part of the Department of Computer Science at KU Leuven. The DTAI lab is one of the leading research groups for machine learning and knowledge-based artificial intelligence. The ML lab of DTAI currently counts five faculty members, two research managers, about 10 post-docs and over 35 doctoral students: https://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be
The position is part of Tias Guns’ 5-year ERC Consolidator grant “Conversational Human-Aware Technology for Optimisation”, which aims to build next-generation constrained optimisation techniques that learn from the user and the environment, and that allow for explainable, interactive solving.
Responsibilities
You will work in the team of Tias Guns on his ERC project. You will be part of a dynamic team (currently 4 PostDocs and 8 PhDs) that performs cutting-edge research in constraint programming, combinatorial optimisation, and machine learning. Each member typically takes on one main research topic, and also collaborates with colleagues on their topic. You will play an active role in the research team, publish papers, co-supervise PhD students, help with project writing when relevant, take part in workshops, public events and other activities.
Profile
Candidate post-docs must have experience in at least one, but recommendably two, of the following topics:
- Constraint modeling languages
- Modeling and Reformulation in Constraint Solving
- Explainable Constraint Solving
- Encodings for MIP/SMT/SAT/ASP solvers
- Constraint acquisition / constraint learning
- Interactive or dynamic constraint solving
- Neural combinatorial optimisation
- Decision-focussed learning / Prediction + Optimisation
- Preference modelling for multi-objective optimisation
- other forms of hybrid constraint solving and machine learning
For the positions, combinatorial optimisation and constraint solving are broadly interpreted and include CP/MIP/ASP/SMT/PB/SAT. Tias’ team is an interdisciplinary team currently covering CP,ML,OR and with an AI mindset. We mainly use Python and are building CPMpy, a modern python-based constraint modeling environment: http://github.com/CPMpy/cpmpy
Offer
Starting dates are flexible, and preferably before the end of 2024. Contracts are evaluated and renewed on a yearly basis, with an outlook of up to 2 years for the current project. You will work on research topics at the synergy of your expertise and the ERC project, and are expected to help co-supervise PhD students as well as master students. Multiple opportunities for gaining teaching experience and other career development exist.
Interested?
For more information please contact Prof. dr. ir. Tias Guns
https://people.cs.kuleuven.be/tias.guns/
https://people.cs.kuleuven.be/tias.guns/
mail: tias.guns@kuleuven.be, tel.: +32 16 32 65 53
You can apply for this job no later than October 28, 2024 via the online application tool
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