The Danish Institute for Advanced Study (DIAS) seeks to fill eight tenure track positions at the Assistant Professor level. DIAS Assistant Professor tenure track positions run for up to six years, after which tenure will be offered subject to positive evaluations and reviews.

The successful candidate must have an international profile and a strong emerging record of research and funding excellence as well as novel ideas with a clear potential to expand our frontiers of knowledge.

DIAS is growing, and this call is in fact the first of five calls: DIAS will hire a minimum of five research fellows at the Assistant Professor level per year for the next five years (2024-2028). Thus, DIAS is looking to hire a total of 25-35 Assistant Professors. We consider this a unique opportunity to hire top talent, to offer exceptional opportunities for outstanding researchers, and to attract “rising stars” to our ambitious and interdisciplinary environment.

The positions are joint positions at DIAS and a department at one of the five faculties at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). The candidate will thus have two affiliations—DIAS and the department—and is expected to contribute to both. Tenure will be offered in the department with continued affiliation with DIAS.

In line with DIAS’s unique and ambitious research aims, DIAS Assistant Professors have reduced teaching obligations compared to a regular Assistant Professor position at SDU. Likely the Assistant Professor will also receive startup or seed funding from the department, though this is subject to negotiation in the hiring process.

The starting date for the positions is August 1, 2024, or as soon as possible thereafter.

DIAS

DIAS aims to inspire groundbreaking ideas across the sciences and humanities. DIAS is particularly committed to the development and promotion of young researchers of exceptional talent. At present, DIAS is home to 17 DIAS Fellows from five faculties, and the applicant will join this group. DIAS also comprises eminent academics appointed as Chairs and Senior Fellows. DIAS offers an interdisciplinary research environment where the selected candidate will be able to interact with outstanding researchers from the five faculties at University of Southern Denmark as well as visiting researchers and fellows. DIAS expects the candidate to compete for prestigious and important funds, such as Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and ERC starting grants. DIAS and SDU offer research support services.

For more information about DIAS activities: https://www.sdu.dk/en/forskning/dias

Questions can be addressed to Director of DIAS, Sten Rynning, [email protected].

In 2024 we are looking for up to four fellows at the Faculty of Engineering. These fellows will be selected within the following ten research areas. Please state in your application within which research area you are applying.

• Affective computing - Affective computing, the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects (experience of feeling, emotion, attachment, or mood). Human affects help in identifying critical states, e.g., stress or depression, but also always influences a person’s preferences, attitudes, and decision-making. Furthermore, affective computing can help to evaluate mental health, which is of particular importance in Danish Society. The right candidate will have experience within theoretical affective computing. Experience within applied affective computing is considered a plus.
  Contact: SDU Health Informatics and Technology, Head of Unit, Daniel Teichmann ([email protected])
  
  
• Agricultural Robotics Agricultural robotics for regenerative farming, to more industry-oriented approaches that are often explored for higher-TRL research. The ideal candidate has a background in robotics or drone technology with application knowledge within agricultural robotics.
  Contact: SDU UAS Center, Head of Unit, Ulrik Pagh Schultz ([email protected])

• Drone Swarming – The ideal candidate has experience within multi-UAV swarms and within several potential research directions, including: (i) Coordination and Control, design of advanced algorithms for effective and dynamic task allocation; (ii) Communication challenges, arising from connection and bandwidth limitations in real-world, potentially adverse, conditions; (iii) Collective sensing and perception, essential for accurate environmental understanding, task execution, and interaction among UAVs; (iv) Scalability, demanding innovative solutions to handle increased complexity and computational demands as the swarm size grows without compromising performance; (v) Resilience and Robustness, aiming to design systems capable of withstanding individual unit failures and maintaining operational integrity; and (viii) Human-Swarm Interaction, focusing on developing intuitive interfaces for human operators to effectively engage and control UAV swarms.
  Contact: SDU UAS Center, Head of Unit, Ulrik Pagh Schultz ([email protected])
  
  
• Large-scale behavioral data science: Behavioral data science ranging from entity behavior (robots), swarm behavior (drones/drone behavior/agent behavior) and AI-agent/digital agents in virtual environments. The ideal candidate is someone with broad spatio/temporal modelling skills across multiple sections.
  Contact: SDU UAS Center, Head of Unit, Ulrik Pagh Schultz ([email protected])
  
  
• Large-Scale Behavioral Data Science in virtual environments - The ideal candidate has experience with all aspects of data science within one of the domains of (i) digital games (ii) game AI (iii) other virtual environments. The candidate should be experienced with data wrangling, data processing, and the building of machine learning models/network models that extract patterns from data, for example towards analyzing human behavior in virtual environments at scale, providing business intelligence, or informing the design of virtual environments or building systems/algorithms that enable artificial entities such as virtual agents or AI-controlled entities to operate in a virtual environment.
  Contact: SDU Metaverse Lab, Head of Unit, Anders Drachen ([email protected])
  
  
• Medical Robotics - Collaboration across robotics, health science, hospitals, lab automation etc. There are many initiatives in this area and TEK has a large potential that must be supported by more strong manpower. The position will be anchored in SDU Robotics but will have threads to several other sections in MMMI and to other departments across SDU. The ideal candidate has a background in robotics with application knowledge within the medical domain.
  Contact: SDU Robotics, Head of Unit, Henrik Gordon Petersen ([email protected])
  
  
• Physics-informed AI - The ideal candidate has experience with physics-informed AI for solving high-dimensional differential equations (integrals and expectation values) of different forms (ODE/PDE/SDE). To cope with the Curse of Dimensionality, where the fine-grid numerical solutions face tremendous challenges with respect to both computational time and resources, Physics-Informed AI can be a remedy. Applications include, but are not limited to, the Fusion energy, sub-wavelength optic design, and solving maxwell equations within dynamic and heterogeneous settings.
  Contact: SDU Applied AI and Data Science, Head of Unit, Esmaeil S. Nadimi ([email protected])
  
  
• Privacy issues in Machine Learning and Data Science - Fully erasing the influence of the data requested to be deleted is challenging since, aside from simply deleting it from databases where it’s stored, it also requires erasing the influence of that data on other artifacts such as trained machine learning models. It is known that in some cases, it may be possible to infer with high accuracy whether an example was used to train a machine learning model. This can raise privacy concerns, as it implies that even if an individual's data is deleted from a database, it may still be possible to infer whether that individual's data was used to train a model.
  Contact: SDU Applied AI and Data Science, Head of Unit, Esmaeil S. Nadimi ([email protected])
  
  
• Quantum software (development) - Development of quantum algorithms and the application of quantum software to real-world use cases. The right candidate has experience with both development tools, technologies, and processes within quantum software.
  Contact: SDU Software Engineering, Head of Unit, Torben Worm ([email protected])
  
  
• Quantum Machine Learning (ML) for drug discovery (ESN) - CAD-design of novel molecules and compounds is a challenging task that can be addressed with quantum computing (QC) owing to its notable advances in optimization and machine learning. Most recent publications in Nature have demonstrated the viability of the proposed molecular design approach by generating several molecular candidates that satisfy specific property target requirements. The target requirements are set by a set of constraints, such as the hosting organs, efficiency, etc. The ideal candidate has knowledge of AI and ML, quantum computing, and bioinformatics. Contact: SDU Applied AI and Data Science, Head of Unit, Esmaeil S. Nadimi ([email protected])

Application, salary, etc.

The successful applicant will be employed in accordance with the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and AC (the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations). Please check links for more information about salary and taxation.

Teaching obligations will be reduced compared to a regular Assistant Professor position at SDU.

To qualify for the position as Assistant Professor you must have obtained a PhD degree by the application deadline.

An application must include:

• A motivation letter
• A detailed Curriculum Vitae
• A copy of important certificates/diplomas
• Information on previous teaching experience, please attach as teaching portfolio
• A complete list of publications, indicating which publications are most relevant for the position
• Up to five of the most relevant publications. Please attach one pdf-file for each publication
• Three letters of recommendation from established international researchers
• A research and publication plan for the next three years, including description of the synergy with the department activities as well as the potential for benefitting from the interdisciplinarity at DIAS

The application deadline is March 1st, 2024.

Application and all appendices must be in English. Only applications written in English will be accepted for evaluation.

To English speaking applicants: Please make sure to enter the electronic application form via the English website to receive further information in English.

We only accept files in pdf-format no more than 10 MB per file. In case you have more than one file per field you need to combine the pdf-files into a single file, as each field handles only one file. We do not accept zip-files, jpg or other image files. All pdf-files must be unlocked and allow binding and may not be password protected.

Applications will be assessed by an assessment committee. Shortlisting may be used. Interviews and tests might be part of the selection process.

Applications received after the deadline will neither be considered nor evaluated.

Applications should be sent electronically via the link "apply online". The faculty expects applicants to read the information How to apply before applying.

If you experience technical problems, you must contact [email protected].

We recommend that as an international applicant you take the time to visit Work in Denmark where you will find information and facts about moving to, working and living in Denmark, as well as the International Staff Office at SDU.

SDU and DIAS wish our staff to reflect the diversity of society and thus welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of personal background. SDU was founded in 1966 and now has more than 27,000 students, almost 20% of whom are from abroad. It has more than 3,800 employees, and 115 different study programmes in the fields of the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences, and engineering. Its main campus is located in Odense, the third largest city in Denmark, but is present also in Kolding, Sønderborg, Esbjerg and Copenhagen.
DIAS hosts Chairs and fellows from the entire university but is located in Odense.
Odense provides family-friendly living conditions with the perfect combination of a historic city centre with an urban feel and yet close proximity to beaches and recreational areas. Its location on the beautiful island of Funen is ideal with easy access by train or highway to the bigger cities of Aarhus and Copenhagen. As the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark’s famous fairytale author, the city is home to a vibrant and creative population that hosts numerous festivals and markets throughout the year.

Kilde: Jobnet.dk