The Systems and Networking (SNE) lab at the Informatics Institute (IvI) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), together with a number of academic and private partners, is running broad research programs with an overlapping interest in the conception and development of data sharing and logistics infrastructures. We are looking for several PhD candidates in Infrastructural and Regulatory Aspects of Data Logistics.

In a world of interconnected economic and institutional actors, the possibility of sharing information and establishing digital collaborations are crucial conditions for increasing agility and performance, lowering costs and reducing risk. Digital collaboration enables the creation of new services and products, leading to new business opportunities, and provides novel solutions for optimization challenges. For these reasons, SNE leads an overarching research project aiming to establish a technological infrastructure where sharing information among partners is easy and robust and can be set up in an ad-hoc fashion, for instance by enabling by design that agreements, data owners have full control over who has access to what data and are able to limit access to specific purposes, times and locations. The resulting infrastructure, named secure and trusted digital market-place (STDMP), aims to enhance existing facilities, maximize business value, comply with various legal requirements and agreements whilst allowing partner autonomy.

With the purpose of investigating the application of the STDMP concept in a variety of domains (health-care, logistics, financial services, etc.) in partnership with relevant private organizations, NWO (the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) and EU Horizon2020 are funding several four-to-five year projects to be conducted within the institute. In this frame, the SNE Lab invites applications for fully funded PhD positions in the area of trusted and secure data sharing architectures, aiming to investigate infrastructural and regulatory aspects, in support to the design and the automation of STDMP. For the large spectrum of topics, various student profiles are potentially relevant; candidates will be distributed according to their expertise to the available research topics.

The ideal candidate has:

• a MSc in computer science, computer engineering, artificial intelligence or related fields;
• fluency in oral and written English;
• good presentation skills, for scientific and business audience;
• strong programming skills;
• capability to work with a team of researchers;
• well-developed analytical skills, creativity, precision and perseverance.

And has expertise in at least one these sub-areas:

• knowledge representation, logic, automated reasoning, normative reasoning;
• agent-based modeling and simulation, multi-agent systems (MAS or NMAS), game-theory;
• distributed systems, cloud and virtual infrastructures, network and computing security;
• networking, SDN and data transfer protocols and architectures;
• data analytics, statistics, machine learning

The appointment will be on a temporary basis for a period of 18 months and after satisfactory evaluation it can be extended for a total duration of 4 years. The appointment should lead to a dissertation (PhD thesis). An educational plan will be drafted that includes attendance of courses and (international) meetings. The PhD candidate is also expected to assist in teaching of bachelor and master students.

The gross monthly salary will range from €2,325 (first year) up to a maximum of €2,972 (last year) effective 1 February 2019. The salary is based on a full-time appointment (38 hours a week). The total salary includes an additional 8% holiday allowance and 8,3% end-of-year bonus, under the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities (Cao).

Among other things, we offer:

• competitive pay and good benefits;
• top-50 University worldwide;
• one of the best Deep Learning Ecosystems in the World
• interactive, open-minded and a very international city;
• excellent computing facilities.

English is the working language in the Informatics Institute. As in Amsterdam almost everybody speaks and understands English, candidates need not be afraid of the language barrier.

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

http://www.uva.nl/en/home

Systems and Networking (SNE) lab

Embedded within the Faculty of Science at the UvA are several e-Science development and application groups, which benefit from its central position in Science Park Amsterdam. The Systems and Networking (SNE) lab is a research lab at the Informatics Institute and chaired by Prof. Cees de Laat. The SNE lab conducts research on leading-edge computer systems of all scales, ranging from global-scale systems and networks to embedded devices. Across these multiple scales, our particular interest is on extra-functional properties of systems, such as performance, programmability, productivity, security, trust, sustainability and, last but not least, the societal impact of emerging systems-related technologies.

https://ivi.fnwi.uva.nl/sne/