About the position

Position as PhD Research Fellow in fair and beneficial AI available at the Department of Informatics.

Starting date no later than 01.01.2021. The fellowship period is 3 years and devoted to carrying out a project entitled Fairness and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence.

Job description

We are looking for researchers interested in the intersection of statistics, machine learning, decision theory and economics with fairness, privacy and beneficial artificial intelligence more generally. The students will have the opportunity to work with our reinforcement learning and decision making group at the University of Oslo, as well as international partners at Chalmers University, Harvard University and EPFL.

We expect to address research challenges including, but not limited to the following:

• Formalising, extending and employing privacy and fairness definitions in artificial intelligence
• Theoretical work on the effects of privacy and fairness guarantees on learning
• Practical work on developing efficient algorithms for fair and private decision making

To get a flavour of what the research area, here are some relevant papers from our group:

• Egalitarian learning in repeated games
• Calibrated fairness in bandits
• Bayesian fairness
• Achieving Privacy in the Adversarial Multi-Armed Bandit
• Bayesian Differential Privacy through Posterior Sampling

For further background, you can take a look at this book and talk about ethical algorithms:

https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Algorithm-Science-Socially-Design/dp/0190948205 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A5RAqs8DJY

Qualification requirements

The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences has a strategic ambition is to be among Europe’s leading communities for research, education and innovation. Candidates for these fellowships will be selected in accordance with this, and expected to be in the upper segment of their class with respect to academic credentials.

• Master’s degree or equivalent in computer science, statistics, economics or a related discipline.
• Foreign completed degree (M.Sc.-level) corresponding to a minimum of four years in the Norwegian educational system

Grade requirements:

The norm is as follows:

• the average grade point for courses included in the Master’s degree must be B or better in the Norwegian educational system
• the Master’s thesis must have the grade B or better in the Norwegian educational system
• Fluent oral and written communication skills in English
• English requirements for applicants from outside of EU/ EEA countries and exemptions from the requirements:

http://www.mn.uio.no/english/research/phd/application/application.html

The purpose of the fellowship is research training leading to the successful completion of a PhD degree.

The fellowship requires admission to the PhD programme at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. The application to the PhD programme must be submitted to the department no later than two months after taking up the position. For more information see:

http://www.uio.no/english/research/phd/

http://www.mn.uio.no/english/research/phd/

Personal skills

• We are interested in students looking for a challenging problem
• Desire to work in a long-term research effort
• Ability to work in a distributed international team

We offer

• Salary NOK 479 600 – 523 200 per year depending on qualifications and seniority as PhD Research Fellow (position code 1017)
• Attractive welfare benefits and a generous pension agreement
• Vibrant international academic environment
• Career development programmes
• Oslo’s family-friendly surroundings with their rich opportunities for culture and outdoor activities

How to apply

The application must include:

• Cover letter - statement of motivation and research interests
• CV (summarizing education, positions and academic work - scientific publications)
• Copies of the original Bachelor and Master’s degree diploma, transcripts of records and letters of recommendation
• Documentation of English proficiency
• List of publications and academic work that the applicant wishes to be considered by the evaluation committee
• Names and contact details of 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and telephone number)

The application with attachments must be delivered in our electronic recruiting system, please follow the link “Apply for this job”. Foreign applicants are advised to attach an explanation of their University's grading system. Please note that all documents should be in English (or a Scandinavian language).

When evaluating the application, emphasis will be given to the eventuelt “project description” and the applicant’s academic and personal prerequisites to carry out the project. Applicants may be called in for an interview.

Formal regulations

Please see the guidelines and regulations for appointments to Research Fellowships at the University of Oslo.

No one can be appointed for more than one PhD Research Fellowship period at the University of Oslo.

According to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure.

The appointment may be shortened/given a more limited scope within the framework of the applicable guidelines on account of any previous employment in academic positions.

The University of Oslo has an agreement for all employees, aiming to secure rights to research results etc.

Contact information

For further information please contact:

• Professor Christos Dimitrakakis e-mail: chridim@ifi.uio.no

For technical questions regarding the recruitment system, please contact HR Adviser Torunn Standal Guttormsen, e-mail: t.s.guttormsen@mn.uio.no

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