PhD position in Fundamental Techniques in Table Representation Learning

Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) has a vacancy for a

4-year PhD position (m/f/x) on the subject of Fundamental Techniques in Table Representation Learning in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam.

Interested in developing fundamental machine learning techniques for tabular data to democratize insights from high-value structured data? Then this fully-funded 4-year PhD position starting Fall/Winter 2025 is for you!

Goal of the Table Representation Learning (TRL) Lab
Approximately 120 zettabytes of data has been collected worldwide but less than 1% is actually used. Structured data as found, for example, in tables, spreadsheets, and relational databases, is prevailing in organizations and typically informs important decisions in governments and humanitarian organizations, healthcare and finance. Yet, while AI has demonstrated a high impact on applications on text and images, proportional progress on tabular data is lacking. With the TRL Lab (Table Representation Learning Lab), we aim to close this gap, by developing AI models and tools for tabular data, to help organizations, of any size, domain, and level of data literacy, get insights from structured data, efficiently, accurately and securely.

Goal of this PhD project
High-capacity neural models, such as transformers, have been pivotal for establishing general-purpose models for a wide variety of natural language tasks. Despite successful adaptations for structured data, our research has identified shortcomings for fundamental properties of tabular data. This research position will focus on exploring fundamental techniques for tabular-native models. This can involve, for example, studying new TRL model architectures, serialization and tokenization techniques, among others. A strong interest and background in AI and/or NLP are desired.

What you will be doing

• Inform a research agenda on the PhD topic for a timespan of four years.
• Develop fundamental AI techniques, new TRL models, and systems specific for tabular data.
• Publish reusable software and data artifacts where relevant.
• Communicate research outcomes through papers and talks at conferences, workshops, and beyond.
• Actively collaborate with other researchers in the TRL Lab (students, 4-5 PhDs, postdocs, PI) and external collaborators (e.g. University of Amsterdam, the UN, and Amsterdam UMC).
• Assist in relevant teaching activities at universities, such as thesis supervision and assisting in courses.

Desired profile

• A master degree in computer science, artificial intelligence, or (very) similar.
• Self-drive, creativity, rigor, sense of ownership, and excitement to push research in TRL forward.
• Theoretical knowledge of, or experience with, machine learning such as representation and generative learning, and natural language processing.
• Programming skills, e.g. Python, Java, or C++.
• Excellent command in English, verbal and written.
• Prior experience as a research assistant during (under)graduate studies is advantageous.

Diversity code
CWI encourages a diverse workforce: we endeavour to develop talent and creativity by bringing people from different backgrounds and cultures together. We recruit and select based on capabilities and talent. We strongly encourage everyone with the appropriate qualifications to apply for the vacancy, regardless of age, gender, origin, sexual orientation or physical abilities.

The terms of employment are in accordance with the Dutch Collective Labour Agreement for Research Centres ("CAO-onderzoeksinstellingen"). The initial labour agreement will be for a period of 18 months. After a positive evaluation, the agreement will be extended by 30 months. The gross monthly salary, for a PhD student on a full time basis, is € 2,968 during the first year and increases to €3,801 over the four year period. Employees are also entitled to a holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary and a year-end bonus of 8.33%. CWI offers attractive working conditions, including flexible scheduling and help with housing for expat employees.

Please visit our websites for more information about our terms of employment:
https://www.cwi.nl/jobs/terms-of-employmentand
https://www.nwo-i.nl/en/working-at-nwo-i/jobsatnwoi/

Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) is the Dutch national research institute for mathematics and computer science and is part of the Institutes Organisation of the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The mission of CWI is to conduct pioneering research in mathematics and computer science, generating new knowledge in these fields and conveying it to trade, industry, and society at large.

CWI is an internationally oriented institute, with 160 scientists from approximately 27 countries, an informal atmosphere and short lines of communication. We have an activity committee that organizes after-work activities and an informal women’s network.

CWI is located at Amsterdam Science Park, which is a major location for scientific research in the Netherlands. Next to CWI, Science Park houses several other national research institutes, many startups and scale-ups, the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX), and the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam.

The Database Architectures (DA) research group of CWI is well known as a leading data systems research group, active in the broad area of analytical database management systems. Our research group has a strong international reputation in academia and industry for pioneering column store technology, fast compression methods, vectorized query execution, indexes for interactive data analysis, and analytical in-process database systems. We have spawned multiple spin-off companies (Data Distilleries, VectorWise, MonetDB Solutions and DuckDB Labs). We pride ourselves on revealing the real problems in our discipline and coming up with revolutionary solutions that are frequently ahead of their time.

About the PI

Madelon Hulsebosis a tenure-track researcher at CWI in Amsterdam where she leads the Table Representation Learning Lab and is member of the Database Architectures group. Prior to joining CWI, she was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley after obtaining her PhD from the University of Amsterdam for which she did research at MIT and Sigma Computing. Her general research interest is on the intersection of machine learning, natural language processing, information retrieval and data management, to democratize insights from tabular data. Madelon founded the successful Table Representation Learning workshop series at NeurIPS and ACL, the TRL Research Theme at the ELLIS unit Amsterdam, and leads various related efforts. She was awarded the BIDS-Accenture fellowship for her postdoctoral research on retrieval systems for structured data at UC Berkeley, and more recently the AiNed fellowship funding the TRL Lab at CWI.

Questions?

If you have questions about this position, please contact the Principal Investigator (PI):

• Dr. ir. Madelon Hulsebos, madelon.hulsebos@cwi.nl.
• For more information about CWI, please visit www.cwi.nl or watch our video about working at CWI.

Interested? Apply!
If you are interested in pioneering research in TRL and the above profile fits you, we look forward to receiving your application. Please use the “apply” button below to apply. We accept applications until 30 June 2025 5pm AoE.

Applicants are expected to submit the following information:

• Letter motivating your application for this position, which should also include a link to your master thesis (or this can be submitted separately) and the email addresses of two (academic) references.
• Curriculum Vitae, including potential publications, projects you worked on, etc., if any.
• Complete grade record of (under)graduate courses.

A select number of applications will be invited to the first interviews to be planned between 5 and 15 July 2025, afterwards a small selection of candidates will get a scoped take-home assignment to be discussed in a second interview. Please note that this position will start in Fall/Winter 2025.