PhD student position in Safety Engineering for Trustworthy Autonomy

You will be a part of an exciting research environment and acquire the skills to conduct independent research. You will contribute to a future in which we can rely on better learning-enabled autonomous systems that have the potential to improve healthcare, transportation, and other areas of our society.  

Project description
We are announcing one PhD position that is placed at the Division for Interaction Design and Software Engineering with Chalmers University of Technology as the employer. Our division provides world-leading research and education in the development of complex and software-intense systems and is characterized by extensive international cooperation as well as close collaboration with the local industry. With approximately 50 researchers including PhD students, PostDocs, and professors, we are one of the largest academic software engineering research groups in the world. Our core expertise is in AI Engineering, software testing, requirements engineering, behavioral software engineering, and software engineering for automotive systems. Being broadly recognized in the academic community, our division has hosted top international conferences such as ICSE, SPLC, ICSA, REFSQ, and EASE during the past recent years.  

Information about the division and the department
The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Chalmers and University of Gothenburg in Sweden with approximately 270 employees from more than 30 countries is widely recognized for excellent research and education. Our department is located in Sweden's second largest city Gothenburg - the world's most sustainable destination every year since 2016 according to the Global Destination Sustainability Index. The four research divisions at our department are essential scientific facilitators in a vibrant ecosystem of software-intensive companies such as Volvo, Ericsson, and Einride. This ecosystem is complemented by a growing start-up scene supported by collaboration hubs like MobilityX Labs and AI Sweden, the national center for applied AI that is bringing together over 120 partners across public and private sectors including academia.

Major responsibilities
The position comes with enrollment in the PhD program for Computer Science and Engineering, designed for 5 years. As a PhD student, you acquire the skills and knowledge to conduct independent research in the field of software engineering, with a special focus on techniques for enabling dependable AI. You also contribute to the development of knowledge in the subject by writing a scientific dissertation. This includes devoting 80% of your working time to performing research under the supervision of more experienced researchers. Typically, this means carrying out research, writing academic articles, and taking courses to complement your background. The remaining 20% of your working time is devoted to departmental duties, such as helping as teaching assistant in courses offered by the University. Those duties can be concentrated on certain parts of the year depending on the needs of the business in consultation with the students.   

Together with the successful applicant, we aim to consider how to combine techniques rooted in first principles (time-to-collision, physics) and symbolic approaches developed in software engineering (e.g., formal verification, testing, synthesis) with the engineering of learning-based software components (e.g., DNN) to ensure that the learning-enabled component will not be the source of harm. In the past, we have developed approaches to formally verify and test autonomous systems, designed specialized loss functions reflecting the safety principles, and developed runtime verification techniques for abnormality detection. The results have been applied in concrete industrial use cases such as autonomous driving, intelligent defect inspection for high-speed trains, and factory automation. As part of the PhD position, you will be able to engage in top-notch research and make a positive impact on society.

Read more about doctoral studies at Chalmers here.

Qualifications
A person meets the general entry requirements for third-cycle studies if he or she: 
 
1. has been awarded a second-cycle qualification 

2. has satisfied the requirements for courses comprising at least 240 credits of which at least 60 credits were awarded in the second-cycle, or  has acquired substantially equivalent knowledge in some other way in Sweden or abroad.

We strongly welcome candidates who have demonstrated early research potential with evidence such as publications in leading CS conferences within fields such as software engineering (e.g., ICSE, FSE), formal methods (e.g., CAV, TACAS, FM, ATVA), robotics (e.g., ICRA, IROS), AI (e.g., AAAI, IJCAI, ECAI) or machine learning (e.g., ICML, ICLR).

Contract terms
Full-time temporary employment. The position is limited to a maximum of five years.

We offer
Chalmers offers a cultivating and inspiring working environment in the coastal city of Gothenburg. 
Read more about working at Chalmers and our benefits for employees.

Chalmers aims to actively improve our gender balance. We work broadly with equality projects, for example the GENIE Initiative on gender equality for excellence. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

Application procedure
The application should be marked with reference number 20240211 and written in English. The application should be sent electronically and be attached as PDF-files, as below. Maximum size for each file is 40 MB. Please note that the system does not support Zip files.

CV: (Please name the document: CV, Family name, reference number)
• CV
• Other, for example previous employments or leadership qualifications and positions of trust.
• Two references that we can contact.

Personal letter: (Please name the document as: Personal letter, Family name, ref.number)
1-3 pages where you:
• Introduce yourself
• Describe your previous experience of relevance for the position (e.g. education, thesis work and, if applicable, any other research activities)
• Describe your future goals and future research focus

Other documents:
• Copies of bachelor and/or master’s thesis.
• Attested copies and transcripts of completed education, grades and other certificates, e.g. TOEFL test results.

Use the button at the foot of the page to reach the application form. 

Please note: The applicant is responsible for ensuring that the application is complete. Incomplete applications and applications sent by email will not be considered.

Application deadline: 2024-05-15

For questions, please contact:
Associate Professor, Chih-Hong Cheng, IDSE,
chihhong@chalmers.se

*** Chalmers declines to consider all offers of further announcement publishing or other types of support for the recruiting process in connection with this position. *** 
   

Chalmers University of Technology conducts research and education in engineering sciences, architecture, technology-related mathematical sciences, natural and nautical sciences, working in close collaboration with industry and society. The strategy for scientific excellence focuses on our six Areas of Advance; Energy, Health Engineering, Information and Communication Technology, Materials Science, Production and Transport. The aim is to make an active contribution to a sustainable future using the basic sciences as a foundation and innovation and entrepreneurship as the central driving forces. Chalmers has around 11,000 students and 3,000 employees. New knowledge and improved technology have characterised Chalmers since its foundation in 1829, completely in accordance with the will of William Chalmers and his motto: Avancez!