Fully funded PhD position in machine learning for information retrieval at the University of Amsterdam

The Informatics Institute at the University of Amsterdam invites applications for a fully funded position for a PhD student in the area of machine learning for information retrieval. The position is within the Intelligent Systems Lab Amsterdam and will be supervised by dr. Shimon Whiteson and prof. dr. Maarten de Rijke. The project will be conducted in close collaboration with dr. Filip Radlinski at Microsoft Research in Cambridge.
Application closing date: 22 March 2015
Starting date: 1 June 2015 or later
Duration: 4 years
The research will focus on the development of new algorithms for leveraging data reuse in order to efficiently evaluate and optimise the behavior of information retrieval systems. Doing so will require new machine learning techniques, which will be tested on real datasets in collaboration with Microsoft Research Cambridge, which funds the project grant.
Applicants must have a master's degree in computer science or a closely related area.
In addition, a successful candidate should have:
* strong math skills.
* good knowledge of modern machine learning methods (specific knowledge of reinforcement learning and/or decision-theoretic planning is a plus).
* good knowledge of modern information retrieval algorithms and models.
* experience programming in at least one of the following languages: C, C++, Java, Python, or Perl.
* excellent oral and written communication skills.
The successful candidate will be based in the Intelligent Systems Lab Amsterdam (ISLA) within the Informatics Institute at the University of Amsterdam. ISLA consists of 20 members of faculty, 20 post-doctoral researchers, and more than 50 PhD students. Members of the lab are actively pursuing a variety of research initiatives, including machine learning, decision-theoretic planning and learning, multiagent systems, human-computer-interaction, natural language processing, information retrieval, and computer vision.
Some of the things we have to offer:
* competitive pay and excellent benefits
* extremely friendly working environment
* high-level of interaction
* location near the city center (10 minutes by bicycle) of one Europe's most beautiful and lively cities
* international environment (10+ nationalities in the group)
* access to high-end computing facilities (cluster with 4,000+ cores)
* brand-new building
Since Amsterdam is a very international city where almost everybody speaks and understands English, candidates need not be afraid of the language barrier.
For further information, including instructions on submitting an application, see the official job ad at http://bit.ly/1AffX8v
Informal inquiries can be made by email to Shimon Whiteson (s.a.whiteson-AT-uva.nl).
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Shimon Whiteson | Associate Professor
Intelligent Autonomous Systems Group
Informatics Institute | University of Amsterdam
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Science Park 904 | 1098 XH Amsterdam
+31 (0)20.525.8701 | +31 (0)6.3851.0110
http://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/s.a.whiteson