PhD Position in Trustworthy AI for Autonomous Plant Operations, EPFL
Job Description
EPFL’s IMOS Lab is taking applications for a PhD position on trustworthy AI for the autonomous operation of process plants, starting in November or by agreement. The call is open until filled.
At a glance
- Post: PhD Position in Trustworthy AI for Autonomous Plant Operations
- Where: Intelligent Maintenance and Operations Systems (IMOS) Lab, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Pay: on the EPFL scale for this grade; the advert gives no figure
- Closing date: none given. EPFL reviews applications as they arrive, so the post is open until filled. We re-check these listings about every 30 days
Read the official EPFL advertisement before you apply.
The project
The objective is a trustworthy AI framework for running process plants autonomously. The research focuses on AI agents that monitor the plant state, then detect and diagnose abnormal conditions.
A process plant is an unforgiving place to put an autonomous agent. Sensors drift, conditions change, and the cost of a confident wrong answer is high. That is why the word trustworthy is in the title: the work is as much about knowing when the model should not be believed as about making it accurate.
The position is full time and fixed term, based in Lausanne.
What you need
- A master’s degree in computer science, control engineering, chemical engineering or a related field
- A background in machine learning, and an interest in industrial systems
- The advertisement asks for an out-of-the-box thinker, so be ready to say how you approach open problems
Pay and conditions
EPFL pays doctoral assistants and postdoctoral researchers on published Swiss federal scales, which are among the higher ones in Europe. This advertisement states no figure, so check the scale for your grade and the cost of living in Lausanne before you decide.
How to apply
Apply through the EPFL careers page for this post. The advertisement gives no closing date. EPFL reviews applications as they come in, so apply early.
Browse more research jobs on ResearchJobs.in, or search our Find a supervisor page.
Hiring institution: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Official advertisement: careers.epfl.ch
How to prepare for this application
- Anomaly detection and diagnosis are the named tasks. Show work on either.
- Uncertainty matters more than accuracy here. Calibration, conformal prediction and out-of-distribution detection are all relevant.
- EPFL works in English. Research and teaching at this level run in English, so French is useful but rarely required.
- Doctoral candidates apply twice. A lab offer at EPFL is normally followed by admission to a doctoral programme, so check the programme's own requirements too.
About EPFL
The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne is one of Switzerland's two federal institutes of technology. It has more than 6,500 staff and over 18,500 people on campus, including more than 14,000 students and 4,000 researchers from over 120 countries, with sites at Lausanne, Neuchâtel, Fribourg, Sion, Geneva and Villigen.
