23 Postdoctoral Fellowship at University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

This postdoctoral position is linked with a research effort aiming to apply cryptographic methods for studying the security aspects of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Cryptographic approaches will be tested for attacks on AI and existing protection methods in cryptography will be applied for security of AI. The candidate will have the freedom to explore new related topics and drive the research in the direction of security of AI and cryptographic elements.

The primary objectives of this project are to explore cryptographic methods and techniques for the security of AI. More concretely, there are three research objectives:

1. To analyze the security of machine learning (ML) models against modifications by using the principles of differential cryptanalysis.

2. To analyze the security of ML models against attacks that aim to recover the parameters of the model (e.g., weights of a neural network).

3. To investigate whether it is possible to improve the security of ML models to make them more resilient against attacks by adapting techniques which have been developed against differential and linear cryptanalyses.

The postdoc will work with a team at the Selmer Center in Secure Communication including among others Adj. Prof. Vincent Rijmen and Prof. Lilya Budaghyan.

We are looking for an ambitious scholar who wants to advance the field of AI by focusing on the foundations of reliable, trustworthy and transparent AI by incorporating models of social interaction into logic-based knowledge representation and reasoning. The postdoc will become part of a dynamic, interdisciplinary, and inclusive team as a member of the department’s research group for Logic and AI. The postdoc will also be associated with the inter-departmental LEAD AI project at UiB, funded by The European Research Council.

The Logic and Artificial Intelligence (LAI) group studies the foundations of reasoning about information in socio-technical systems of interacting  agents. We consider interactions both with people and with computational agents. Our work finds applications in several different sub-areas of Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems particularly including logic-based knowledge representation and reasoning.  Key interests of our research include pure and applied modal logic (in particular epistemic and strategic), machine ethics and normative systems, aggregation of information, judgments and preferences, reasoning about social networks, and networks of text and people. Our research is highly interdisciplinary, combining work on formal logic from computer and information science, mathematics and philosophy with models and concepts from the social sciences such as game theory, social choice theory, social network analysis and formal ethics, applied to problems in artificial intelligence such as knowledge representation and machine reasoning.

We are looking for an ambitious scholar who wants to advance the field of AI by focusing on techniques that enable the creation of trustworthy and responsible information systems. The postdoc will become part of a dynamic, interdisciplinary, and inclusive team as a member of the department’s research group for Intelligent Information Systems (I2S). The postdoc will also be associated with the inter-departmental LEAD AI project at UiB, funded by The European Research Council.

I2S is an interdisciplinary ICT research group with members from areas such as: artificial intelligence, computer science, computational linguistics, data science, information science, information systems, and software engineering. The group studies the foundation, development, and evaluation of information systems (IS) that employ artificial intelligence (AI). Central AI techniques for us are deep learning, image analysis, knowledge graphs, machine learning, and natural-language understanding. We investigate application areas such as digital multimedia forensics, decision making in health IS, personal data analysis, and sustainability. A particular focus is intelligent information systems for the media sector, for example for news production.

The Center for Digital Narrative focuses on algorithmic narrativity, interactive environments, materialities, and shifting cultural contexts in which digital narratives are received and processed. The CDN investigates the ways that the interactions of human authors and non-human agents renew narrative forms, how digital narratives have changed over time, and how textual materialities and cultural contexts are now reshaping the use and function of digital narrative. The activities of the Center include research group meetings, interactions with international research leaders in digital narrative, researcher training, PhD summer schools, frequent symposia and exhibitions.

The Faculty of Psychology has a broad thematic profile based on various disciplines and several study programmes. Some of the faculty’s key research areas are basic and applied research in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, health promotion, child welfare services, speech therapy, pedagogy and educational science, as well as global and development-related research.

The faculty aims to facilitate cross-disciplinary research and stimulate interaction with other AI researchers at the faculty and at the University of Bergen.

Possible research topics are for example, in alphabetical order:

• AI in applied and clinical psychology
• AI in communication (e.g. as helping tool)
• AI in the context of education and pedagogical challenges and opportunities, including AI in higher education, teacher education and schools
• AI in neuroscience (e.g., analyses of complex and/or big data of genetics, neuroimaging, EEG, ECG, multi-omics, and cognition)
• Use, user experiences, and attitudes towards AI

The vacant postdoctoral research fellow position will be anchored at one of the faculty’s departments or centres, with the expectation of working interdisciplinary. The affiliation will be to the department or centre most relevant to the postdoctor’s research topic.

Every two years, face-to-face interviews have been conducted with newly selected, cross-sectional samples. In the near future, the ESS will transition to self-completion interview mode, where the coming Round 12 will be in hybrid format. This offers a great opportunity to conduct survey methodological research on mode effects or other methodological investigations. The candidate will be a part of the excellent survey research community at the Digital Social Science Core Facility (DIGSSCORE) at UiB, and will be invited to join one of the thematic research units that use DIGSSCORE’s online survey research infrastructure, The Norwegian Citizen Panel, https://www.uib.no/en/digsscore/122183/thematic-research-units. The postdoc will contribute to every aspects of the fielding of the survey in Norway, including but not limited to

• Coordination with a) ESS’s central management in London, b) survey agencies conducting fieldwork, and c) national coordinators in other member countries,
• Translation and quality assurance of Norwegian questionnaires,
• Fieldwork monitoring,
• Data analysis and dissemination of results.

The project addresses the impact of demographic change on representative democracy. The growing proportion of senior citizens across European populations increases their influence on elections and policy decisions. How does this affect the political representation of old, young, and future generations ́ interests? To assess the impact of demographic change on Generational Political Pluralism in Norway, Europe, and beyond, the project investigates generational cleavages in two integral parts of policymaking: public opinion and political representation. The empirical analyses draw on a combination of observational, behavioural, and experimental data and will use a range of innovative methods like survey experiments, text analysis, and social network analysis to make descriptive and causal inferences. Read more about the project here. A detailed project plan is available upon request.

Dwarf-shrubs are a dominant plant functional group across the boreal, arctic and alpine biomes, and they play important roles for biodiversity, ecology and ecosystem functioning in the habitats in which they occur. For example, dwarf-shrubs provide important food resources for grazers, pollinators, and people and habitat for other plants, insects, rodents, and birds. Through interactions with fungal symbionts in the soil (ericoid mychorriza), they play critical roles in ecosystem carbon sequestration and carbon storage, with implications for feedbacks from terrestrial ecosystems to the global climate system. DURIN will explore the role of dwarf-shrubs in climate responses and feedbacks across biomes and habitats in Norway, integrating plant physiology, ecology, and ecosystem science. Using distributed observational systems, field experiments, and growth chamber studies, we will obtain fundamental knowledge on how climate change directly and indirectly affects this important plant functional group, and its ecosystem functions and services. This improved process understanding will be integrated in land surface and earth system models to understand the role and contribution of dwarf-shrubs in the feedbacks from terrestrial vegetation to the climate system.

Two (2) open positions as postdoctoral research fellow are available at the Faculty of Medicine for a period of three (3) years (full-time), starting 1st of September 2024.

The postdoctoral research fellow may be assigned required duties at the department or at the faculty. Such duties can be teaching, exam work or supervision, depending on the needs of the department or the faculty, or be connected to the Medical Student Research Program, or the basic course (MEDMET) for PhD candidates. The teaching language is usually Norwegian, but English at PhD level.

The positions will be placed at the relevant department, depending on the project, and the place of work shall primarily be at the faculty in Norway. For the application to be processed, the candidate must be affiliated with a different research environment than during their PhD.

As a research assistant you will be responsible for the following tasks:

• 1) Implementation of algorithms for combinatorial problems.
• 2) Experimental evaluation of the implemented algorithms.
• 3) Writing reports describing technical details of implemented algorithms, eventual            implementation details and experimental results.
• 4) Participation in research activities, such as reading scientific papers, presenting results in            seminars, workshops, etc.

Your work will be split into a sequence of milestones to be agreed on during the execution of the project. You will be working independently towards the completion of each milestone and will have a lot of flexibility in organizing your schedule, respecting the completion of milestones by the deadlines agreed upon. The position is compatible with remote work within Norway.

(18) Postdoctoral Fellowship Position

Postdoc Fellowship Position summary/title: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Genomics (100 %) 3 years at the Department of Clinical Science

Deadline : 14th April 2024

View details & Apply

ASYKNOW will develop new conceptual tools for understanding the role of expert knowledge in asylum litigation. The project investigates how expert knowledge is mobilized, contested and constituted in the asylum appeal process in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, and combines an ethnography of legal processes with legal archaeology.

We are looking for a researcher who can conduct the research in Germany. This involves conducting ethnographic research focusing on how expert knowledge is deployed in the appeal process of asylum related cases in Germany, as well as a legal archaeology study of selected court cases in Germany. The researcher is also expected to contribute to the development of the overall project in terms of comparison, integration and dissemination of knowledge. Applicants are strongly advised to familiarize themselves with the project description of ASYKNOW. This can be obtained by contacting the project leader at [email protected]

Work in the Lynagh group focuses on the evolution, function, and pharmacology of ligand-gated ion channels, receptors that mediate rapid communication between neurons, using molecular phylogenetics, mutagenesis, chemical biology, and electrophysiology. One research stream in the lab is developing novel chemogenetic tools from invertebrate ion channels. Building on existing work in the lab, this postdoc project will use molecular biology and patch clamp to characterize and engineer ion channels into receptors of desired pharmacological properties. This will involve some characterization of novel ion channels with heterologous expression but also in cultured neurons or ex vivo preparations. It is expected that the successful applicant also collaborates with other members of the workgroup, including students and postdocs.

The objective of this project is to understand the role of thunderstorm gamma-ray glows (GRG) in the chemistry of the Earth’s atmosphere and in the global electrical environment.

The objective of this project may be achieved by answering the following research questions:

• What is the mechanism of gamma-ray glow (GRG) generation in thunderstorms? How to quantify their intensity and spectrum based on thunderstorm properties?
• Do GRG contribute significantly to changes in stratospheric chemistry and the dynamics of the ozone layer?
• Do GRG contribute significantly to creation of stratospheric aerosols?
• Do GRG significantly modify the global electric circuit?

The postdoctoral research fellow will develop numerical codes needed for the project, in particular, the aerosol dynamics code, and will help other team members with development of other codes. The fellow will also perform theoretical studies of the GRG, such as the numerical analysis of GRG effects on the ozone layer.

Work in the Lynagh group focuses on the evolution, function, and pharmacology of ligand-gated ion channels, receptors that mediate rapid communication between neurons, using molecular phylogenetics, mutagenesis, chemical biology, and electrophysiology. One research stream in the lab is identifying and characterizing novel proteins in invertebrates, with a view towards understanding and exploiting protein evolution to develop pharmacological ideas and tools. This will involve cloning, measuring gene expression, and analysing protein structure and function in vitro and in vivo. It is expected that the successful applicant also collaborates with other members of the workgroup, including students and postdocs.