The Operations Management department at the Amsterdam Business School (University of Amsterdam) invites applications for a PhD position in Statistics with a computer science orientation. We are looking for candidates with the ambition to work and succeed at the highest international academic level.

What are you going to do?

The research area is Predictive Process Modeling (PPM), which focuses on forecasting potential problems during process execution before they occur. Applications have been developed in a wide range of domains, such as manufacturing, healthcare, networking, and business processes. Increasingly comprehensive data collection provides more process visibility. Advances in machine learning make use of this increase in detail and frequency of data. Data-driven techniques in this area can be used to improve process quality control by forecasting and monitoring potential process problems. Prediction methods include regression techniques, support vector machines, decision trees, random forest, elastic nets, neural networks, and gradient boosting.

Predictive monitoring starts with defining an (unwanted) process outcome. Subsequently, a model is specified for the process. The parameters of the model are then estimated using the available data. When monitoring commences, the estimated parameters are used to generate process predictions. The probability of the defined process outcome is then calculated. If the probability exceeds a predetermined threshold, the procedure signals. The parameters can then be re-estimated and the monitoring continues. Note that machine learning techniques require less formal modeling, but more data and computing power to perform predictions. Furthermore, as with Statistical Process Monitoring, the threshold to signal will determine the expected false alarm rate. The performance of a PPM procedure can be evaluated using the precision and recall metrics.

The PhD student will work in close collaboration with the supervisory team and other faculty on tasks that include:

• understanding statistical modeling and applying machine learning techniques;
• identifying novel research questions based on real-world phenomena or extant theory;
• presenting research findings at international conferences;
• writing up findings for publication in international journals;
• basic programming skills;
• attending classes and seminars (including those offered at other universities) to further develop thinking and research skills;
• participating in and contributing to departmental research functions (PhD Day, research seminars, research meetings);
• teaching-related activities (to a limited degree), including undergraduate tutorials and the supervision of MSc and/or BSc thesis projects.

What do we require?

Formal requirements:

• Masters’ degree (preferably a Research Master´s or MPhil degree) in Econometrics, Mathematics or a related field;
• GMAT or GRE score of no more than five years old (for students with a Master degree obtained from a non-Dutch university). An indication of the minimum score required is 85%;
• proof of English proficiency through a TOEFL test (score of at least 100 on the internet based test and 600 on the paper based test) or IELTS test (minimum score of 7.5), where the scores were obtained no more than two years before the application.

Task-related requirements:

• excellent speaking and writing ability in fluent English, ideally with experience writing for a scientific audience;
• willingness and motivation to independently formulate research projects and carry them through to completion;
• excellent organizational skills;
• experience conducting empirical research;
• statistical skills and command of standard software packages for analysing data (e.g., R, Python), and a strong willingness to develop these skills further.

Additional requirements:

• strong motivation to pursue an international career as a leading scholar;
• strong commitment to methodological rigor and scientific integrity;
• energy and passion for statistics and machine learning;
• intellectual curiosity, eagerness to learn, and openness to criticism;
• proof of 'good citizenship' beyond academic achievements (i.e., volunteering experience).

Our offer

The employment contract will be for an initial period of 12 months, with an intermediate evaluation after 18 months with a possibility to extend it for 36 months (in total 4 years). End-result should be a PhD thesis. An educational plan will be drafted that includes attendance of courses and (international) conferences. Preferred starting date is 1 July 2021.

The gross monthly salary will range from €2,395 in the first year to €3,061 in the last year. The Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities is applicable.

Would you like to know more about working at the University of Amsterdam? Take a look here.

What else do we offer

The department of Operations Management of the Amsterdam Business School focuses on research in a wide range of topical areas and methods in analytics for a better world.

The members of the department have published their research in the top-tier academic Marketing journals, such as the Journal of Quality Technology, Technometrics, Operations Research, Management Science, Journal of Machine Learning Research.

Members of the department are also involved in teaching in undergraduate, master, and research master level programs, as well as in executive education, and uphold strong relationships to industry, business, and healthcare.

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.

Faculty of Economics and Business – Amsterdam Business School

Education and Research at UvA Economics and Business (EB) provides academic courses for more than 7,000 students in Economics, Business, Actuarial Science, Econometrics, and a variety of courses in the Executive Master’s programs. The Faculty also conducts research programs in many specialist areas and employs about 400 people. The EB has an internationally acclaimed profile and is located in the heart of Amsterdam. EB consists of the Amsterdam Business School (ABS) and the Amsterdam School of Economics (ASE)

The Amsterdam Business School provides an inspiring and truly international research environment. This manifests itself in the ties its members have with major schools around the globe, and its international seminar program.

Business school researchers have access to excellent facilities, including an experimental behavioral lab, and a behavioral lab (including sound-insulated cubicles, group labs, video labs, virtual reality, and facilities for eye tracking, EEG/ERP). High-performance computing is available to researchers via SURFSara (a Dutch consortium for scientific computing). The Amsterdam Business School focuses on high quality research while it fosters diversity in terms of research topics and methods.

A Financial Times ranking places Amsterdam Business School (ABS) at number 7 among European business schools in terms of research output focusing on the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Amsterdam Business School is also the only Dutch institution to be listed in the top-10.