13290 - Research Associate

University of Edinburgh; City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 41,000 - 49,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading university in Scotland is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Associate for a project funded by the AI for Math Fund. This role involves conducting innovative research in semi-formal proofs and working with Large Language Models (LLMs). The ideal candidate will hold a PhD or be near completion in relevant fields and possess strong research and communication skills. The position supports collaboration with prestigious institutions and allows for flexible and hybrid working arrangements.

Benefits

Funding for international travel to conferences

Qualifications

• Develop a design for semi-formal proofs interfacing LLMs with proof assistants.
• Implement a framework leveraging feedback within a theorem-proving environment.
• Track record of research excellence demonstrated by publications or projects.

Responsibilities

• Conduct cutting-edge research on semi-formal proofs.
• Design and implement an RL framework involving feedback.
• Collaborate with team members in several institutions.

Skills

Research excellence

Experience with LLMs

Good written and communication skills

Education

PhD or near completion in PL, Formal Verification, NLP, ML, or related areas

Job description

Overview

UE07: £41,064.00 - £48,822.00 Per Annum. CSG / School of Informatics. Full Time - 35 Hours Per Week. Fixed Term Contract - Temporary.

The Opportunity

The project is fully funded by the AI for Math Fund from Renaissance Philanthropy and XTX Markets. Its central goal is the development of Sketchpad, an AI-powered system that enables users to navigate semi-formal proofs (i.e., formal sketches), with Lean and Isabelle serving as the formal backends.

The PDRA will be jointly supervised by Dr Wenda Li (AI for Mathematics) and Dr Mai Luo (ML Systems), and will collaborate with team members based at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, and the University of Cambridge.

Responsibilities

• Conducting cutting-edge research on the design of semi-formal proofs that effectively interface LLMs with proof assistants;
• Designing and implementing an RL/agentic framework to leverage multiple forms of feedback within a theorem-proving environment. This position includes funding for international travel to attend leading conferences.

This post is advertised as full-time (35 hours per week), however, we are open to considering part-time or flexible working patterns. We are also open to considering requests for hybrid working (on a non-contractual basis) that combines a mix of remote and regular on-campus working.

Application documents

• CV
• 1-page cover letter
• A maximum of 3 scientific papers and a link to a codebase that illustrate the research quality of the candidate and their affinity with the research topic

Skills and attributes for success

• A PhD or near completion in PL, Formal Verification, NLP, ML, or related areas of computer science / engineering / mathematics.
• Track record of research excellence, evidenced by e.g. preprints / publication record.
• Experience in working with large formalisation project or implementation of foundation models / LLMs, evidenced by e.g. projects on Github.
• Willingness to explore and adapt to new tasks (both LLM and AI4Math are new fields, and so much to learn from scratch).
• Good written and communication skills.