PhD position in continual machine learning for knowledge extraction from text

We offer a 4-year fully funded PhD position on the topic of continual machine learning aimed at knowledge extraction from text. The integration of unstructured (text) and structured data (knowledge base entries and natural language structure) will be studied to improve current knowledge extraction from text and to decrease the need for annotated training data. The PhD involves cutting-edge research on the integration of structured knowledge and deep learning models in a continual learning set-up. This fundamental research will be evaluated in the biomedical and news domains. The research project is funded by the FWO (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen) and the SNSF (Swiss National Science Foundation).
Profile
We are looking for a highly creative candidate who has (or is near completion of) a master in Computer Science (or a related field) with a profound interest in natural language processing and machine learning, who has excellent grades, is able to work independently and has a very good knowledge of English, both spoken and written.
Offer
We offer a competitive wage and yearly budget to attend conferences and to participate in short research stays. The successful candidate will work in the Language Intelligence & Information Retrieval (LIIR) lab (https://liir.cs.kuleuven.be/) in the Human Computer Interaction section of the Department of Computer Science of KU Leuven, and will closely collaborate with the IDIAP research institute (https://www.idiap.ch/en) in Switzerland. KU Leuven ranks among the top 50 universities in THE World University Rankings 2019 and tops the Reuters ranking of Europe's most innovative universities. The LIIR lab is a member of the ELLIS (European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems - https://ellis.eu) unit of KU Leuven. LIIR is involved in numerous collaborations with the PSI group of the Department of Electrical Engineering of KU Leuven (https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/psi). The alumni of the LIIR lab have obtained outstanding positions in academics and industry (see https://liir.cs.kuleuven.be/people.php).