Doctoral Student Position in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Basel

The lab of Rava Azeredo da Silveira invites applications for a PhD Student position at the interface of computational neuroscience and machine learning at the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB) in Switzerland, an associated institute of the University of Basel.

This PhD position in Artificial Intelligence is available for the academic session 2021-2022

Summary

Project Description

Research projects will involve modelling and data analysis; some projects will be carried out in the framework of collaborations with experimental labs. Questions will be chosen from various topics involving neural representations relating to behaviour, neural coding, dynamics and learning.

Candidates with mathematics, statistics, artificial intelligence, physics, computer science, and engineering are welcome. Experience with data analysis and proficiency with numerical methods, in addition to familiarity with mathematical and statistical methods, are desirable. Equally desirable is a spirit of intellectual adventure, eagerness, and drive.

Application Deadline

The deadline for applications is February 24, 2021

Eligibility Criteria

IOB is a research institute combining basic and clinical research. Its mission is to drive innovations in understanding the vision and its diseases and develop new therapies for vision loss. IOB is an equal opportunity employer with family-friendly work policies.

The Silveira Lab focuses on a range of topics, which are tied together through a central question: How does the brain represent and manipulate information?

Among the more concrete approaches to this question, the lab analyses and models neural activity in circuits that can be identified, recorded from, and perturbed experimentally, such as visual neural circuits in the retina and the cortex. Establishing links between physiological specificity and the structure of neural activity yields an understanding of courses as building blocks of cerebral information processing.

On a more abstract level, the lab investigates the representation of information in populations of neurons from a statistical and algorithmic-rather than mechanistic-point of view through theories of coding and data analyses. These studies aim at understanding the statistical nature of high-dimensional neural activity in different conditions and how this serves to encode and process information from the sensory world.

In the context of cognitive studies, the lab investigates mental processes such as inference, learning, and decision-making, through both theoretical developments and behavioural experiments. A particular focus is studying neural constraints and limitations and, further, their impact on mental processes. Neural restrictions influence the structure and variability of mental representations, which inform the cognitive algorithms that produce behaviour. The lab explores the nature of neural limitations, mental models, and cognitive algorithms and their interrelations.

Award Information

The positions will come with highly competitive work conditions and salaries.

Application Process

Please send the following information in one single PDF to silveira@iob.ch:
1. Letter on motivation and interests;
2. Curriculum vitæ;
3. Transcripts of undergraduate and Master grades.

Also, please arrange for three letters of recommendations to be sent to the same email address. In all email correspondence, please include the mention “APPLICATION-PHD” in the subject header; otherwise the application will not be considered.

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