Connectionists: PhD position in machine learning, University of Helsinki, Finland

[Arto Klami]

The Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT and the 
Department of Computer Science are offering a fully-funded position for

DOCTORAL STUDENT IN MACHINE LEARNING

at University of Helsinki, Finland. The candidate will be working on a 
long-term project titled "Traces of Information: Intelligence from 
fragmented data" with Academy Research Fellow Arto Klami, as part of the 
Complex Systems Computation (CoSCo) group (http://www.hiit.fi/cosco).


DESCRIPTION:
The project develops novel Bayesian machine learning tools for 
integrated analysis and understanding of complex and fragmented data 
sources, to extract useful information seen only by combining the 
sources. A prototypical scenario would be to understand the daily 
actions of a person or the behavior of a community by jointly modeling 
their social media output, spatiotemporal data recorded by mobile 
devices and public transportation systems, and other available public 
and private data sources. The PhD student will work on the core machine 
learning challenge of learning how to combine these sources that do not 
come with direct associations between the different streams.


APPLYING:
Successful applicant should have a Master's degree or equivalent 
qualification in computer science, statistics, mathematics, or other 
related field.  Strong mathematical background and interest in 
conducting research on probabilistic modeling and machine learning is 
required, as well as knowledge of some numerical programming language 
(R/Matlab/Python). Prior experience with machine learning and Bayesian 
models, in particular nonparametric Bayesian modeling, is considered a 
strong asset.

The monthly salary will be based on rules of the salary system applied 
in Finnish universities, and can currently range between 1 944,69 and 3 
558,31 euros. Funding is provided for the duration of whole PhD, with 
initial contract for three years and starting date in fall 2013.

The applicants are requested to enclose with their application a CV, a 
transcript of studies / copy of degree certificate, and a motivation 
letter describing the applicant’s interest to the subject. Applications 
should be addressed to the Department of Computer Science at 
rekry.toi(at)cs.helsinki.fi. The closing date for applications is Monday 
12 August 2013 at 15.45 local Helsinki time.

Further information may be obtained from the project leader Arto Klami 
(arto.klami at hiit.fi). The full announcement is available in 
http://www.helsinki.fi/recruitment/index.html?id=70212


SITE:
The Department of Computer Science (http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/en) at the 
University of Helsinki is the leading Finnish research and education 
institute in its field. The Department's research and teaching focus on 
1) algorithms and machine learning, 2) networks and services as well as 
3) software systems. The Department has three Finnish centres of 
excellence funded by the Academy of Finland and cooperates closely in 
research projects with the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology 
HIIT (http://www.hiit.fi/). The Department is also one of ten Finnish 
centres of excellence in university education. The Department has a 
staff of 170 and an overall budget of EUR 11 million. Its research 
infrastructure is excellent, including its own 1960-core computing cluster.