Postdoc Neurosymbolic Reasoning in Multimodal World Models

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 41,000 - 64,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Holiday allowance

End-of-year bonus

ABP pension

Personalized benefits

Commuting contributions

Holiday entitlement 232 hours

Job summary

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam invites applications for a Postdoctoral position focusing on advancing multimodal world models with explicit commonsense abstraction and reasoning. The successful candidate will develop neurosymbolic world models and evaluate them on tasks requiring space-, time-, and causality-based commonsense reasoning. This project is funded by the NWO AiNed talent project and will be co-supervised by Dr.

Filip Ilievski, Dr. Emile van Krieken, and Prof. Cees Snoek.

Qualifications

• PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, Neurosymbolic AI, or a closely related area.
• Ability to invent and evaluate novel algorithms and present orally and in writing.
• Record of publishing in high-quality conferences or journals in the above fields.

Responsibilities

• Show independence in achieving research goals and supervise PhD students.
• Invent, evaluate, and describe novel multimodal abstraction and explicit reasoning techniques.
• Publish and present research at international venues.
• Collaborate with researchers in Amsterdam and internationally.
• Contribute to teaching activities (lectures, labs, supervising students).
• Develop your portfolio and academic career trajectory.

Education

PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Vision, NLP, Neurosymbolic AI

Tools

Python DL toolkits

Job description

Your function

While the performance of multimodal world models has significantly improved, they still lack commonsense abstraction and reasoning capabilities. These models fail to capture the causal aspects of the physical and social world. To address the grand challenge of commonsense abstraction and reasoning with multimodal world models, we will explore methods to enhance their robustness, abstraction, and visual grounding abilities. We will focus on learning explicit, effective abstractions from limited human-labeled data, serving as dynamic, neurosymbolic world models. Following cognitive principles, we will evaluate these methods on tasks that require commonsense reasoning over space, time, and causality.

This project is funded by the NWO AiNed talent project “Human-centric AI with common sense” of Dr. Filip Ilievski (Learning and Reasoning, VU Amsterdam). The Postdoc will be co-supervised by Dr. Filip Ilievski, Dr. Emile van Krieken (Learning and Reasoning, VU Amsterdam), and Prof. Cees Snoek (Video & Image Sense Lab, UvA). The Postdoc will be part of ELLIS Unit Amsterdam.

Your duties

• to show independence in achieving research goals and willingness to collaborate and supervise PhD students working on multimodal abstraction, commonsense reasoning, and world models
• to invent, evaluate, and describe novel techniques for multimodal abstraction and explicit reasoning as dynamic, neurosymbolic world models
• to publish and present this research at international conferences, workshops, and journals
• to become an active member of the research community and to collaborate with other researchers, both in Amsterdam and internationally
• to contribute to teaching activities, such as lectures, lab courses, or supervising bachelor and master students
• to develop your portfolio and vision towards your next career position in academia

Your profile

• you have a PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, Neurosymbolic AI, or a closely related area
• you can invent and evaluate novel algorithms and present these orally and in writing
• you have a record of publishing in relevant, high-quality conferences or journals in the above fields
• you are eager to tackle fundamental challenges in the areas of multimodality, abstraction, commonsense reasoning, and neurosymbolic world models
• you can implement and evaluate commonsense reasoning methods with multimodal foundation models, e.g., using Python deep learning toolkits
• you can work well in teams and communicate effectively in written and spoken English

As a university, we strive for equal opportunities for all, recognising that diversity takes many forms. We believe that diversity in all its complexity is invaluable for the quality of our teaching, research and service. We are always looking for talent with diverse backgrounds and experiences. This also means that we are committed to creating an inclusive community so that we can use diversity as an asset.

We realise that each individual brings a unique set of skills, expertise and mindset. Therefore we are happy to invite anyone who recognises themselves in the profile to apply, even if you do not meet all the requirements.

What do we offer?

A challenging position in a socially engaged organisation. At VU Amsterdam, you contribute to education, research and service for a better world. And that is valuable. So in return for your efforts, we offer you:

• a salary of minimum € 3.706,00 (Scale 10) and maximum€ 5.760,00 (Scale 10) gross per month, on a full-time basis. This is based on UFO profile Researcher 4. The exact salary depends on your education and experience
• a position for 1 FTE. Your employment contract will be for 2 years, preferably starting in Q1 of 2027

We also offer you attractive fringe benefits and regulations. Some examples:

• a full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you choose to work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata
• 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
• solid pension scheme (ABP)
• optional model for designing a personalized benefits package
• contribution to commuting expenses

About us

About the department
The VUA Department of Computer Science has approximately 250 members, including 50 tenured staff members and 40-50 PhD students. The tenured staff members form the basis for the functioning of the department. A tenured staff member is required to make significant contributions to the research and education programmes, and to spend effort on specific tasks at the department level.

Faculty of Science
Working at the Faculty of Science means collaborating with students, lecturers and researchers who are focused on their field, yet have a broad view of the world. We are proud of a positive and inclusive workplace culture within the faculty, where we work together with great energy and a pragmatic attitude to tackle social challenges. At the Faculty of Science, scientists and students work on fundamental and complex societal issues for a sustainable, healthy and just future.

From forest fires to big data, from obesity to malnutrition, from helium to the universe and from genetics to medicine: our education and research cover the full breadth of science, from molecules to mankind. Our academic education and research are highly experimental, technical and interdisciplinary in nature. That is why we collaborate extensively with leading scientific institutes and industry. The faculty has more than 8,000 students studying in one of the 39 programms and employs more than 1,400 staff across 10 scientific departments, making us one of the largest science faculties in the Netherlands.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam stands for values-driven education and research. We are open-minded experts with the ability to think freely - a broader mind. Maintaining an entrepreneurial perspective and concentrating on diversity, significance and humanity, we work on sustainable solutions with social impact. By joining forces, across the boundaries of disciplines, we work towards a better world for people and planet. Together we create a safe and respectful working and study climate, and an inspiring environment for education and research. Learn more about our codes of conduct

We are located on one physical campus, in the heart of Amsterdam's Zuidas business district, with excellent location and accessibility. Over 6,150 staff work at the VU and over 31,000 students attend academic education.

Diversity
Diversity is the driving force of VU Amsterdam. VU wants to be accessible and receptive to diversity in disciplines, cultures, ideas, nationalities, beliefs, preferences and worldviews. We believe that trust, respect, interest and differences lead to new insights and innovation, to sharpness and clarity, to excellence and a broader understanding.

We stand for an inclusive community and believe that diversity and internationalisation contribute to the quality of education, research and our services.

Therefore, we are always searching for people whose backgrounds and experience contribute to the diversity of the VU community.

Vacancy questions
If you have any questions regarding this vacancy, you may contact:

Name: Filip Ilievski
Position: Assistant professor
E-mail: [e-mail]

Relocation support
If you have any questions regarding moving to Amsterdam, and working at VU Amsterdam, you may contact:
International Staff Support: [e-mail]