The Formal Methods and Tools (FMT) group at the University of Twente is looking for a highly motivated and talented PhD candidate to join the team working on diagnostic methods for malfunctions of cyber-physical systems. Designing systems such as MRI printers and scanners, for instance, is by no means easy and failures are often expensive and dangerous. To lower these costs, and increase system availability and reliability, more knowledge about these failures is needed: how do they arise and how to prevent and repair them?

You will be working on the ZORRO project: Engineering for Zero Downtime in Cyber-Physical Systems via Intelligent Diagnostics, led by Prof. Dr. Mariëlle Stoelinga. The project is a collaboration between the University of Twente, VU Amsterdam, Saxion University of Applied Sciences, TNO-ESI and five industrial partners. Two of the PhD positions in this project will be working at the FMT group, the other one on the topic of system engineering. You will be supervised by Prof. Dr. Mariëlle Stoelinga and Dr. Georgiana Caltais.

System-level diagnosis currently heavily depends on knowledge that is hidden in the brains of the experts or written documentation, often vaguely specified. Therefore, you will be working on (i) finding ways to formally model knowledge about organisations, agents and domains for the specific task of diagnostics, (ii) developing knowledge extraction methods in large industrial systems, (iii) extracting knowledge from various information sources (such as tables, spoken conversation, meta-data, etc.) and (iv) integrating the various extracted knowledge and data into the actual diagnostic process.

Responsibilities:

• You will perform daily PhD-level research. You will both work on your own topics, and collaborate with an excellent and internationally renowned team of researchers and experts in the field to contribute to the development of new techniques and approaches.
• Work on industrial cases, in collaboration with our consortium partners: Philips and Canon.
• Present (both preliminary and mature) results at appropriate meetings and conferences.
• Publish results in scientific workshops, conference proceedings, and journals.
• Contribute to teaching on topics related to your work.
• Supervise and mentor involved BSc and MSc students as needed.

• You have, or will shortly acquire, a MSc degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related field.
• You have a creative mindset and strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
• You are comfortable with working on practical tasks, on industrial case studies.
• You have a thorough theoretical background, e.g., in formal methods.
• You have experience with at least one of the fields of safety, failure analysis, statistical and/or knowledge modelling, information extraction, and are willing to delve deeper into these topics.
• You are fluent in English and have excellent communication skills.
• You have good team spirit and like to work in an interdisciplinary and internationally oriented environment, collaborating within the industry and academia alike.

• As a PhD student at the University of Twente, you will be appointed to a full-time position for four years, with a qualifier in the first year, within a very stimulating and exciting scientific environment;
• The University offers a dynamic ecosystem with enthusiastic colleagues;
• Your salary and associated conditions are in accordance with the collective labour agreement for Dutch universities (CAO-NU);
• You will receive a gross monthly salary ranging from € 2.541,- (first year) to € 3.247,- (fourth year);
• There are excellent benefits including a holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary, an end-of-year bonus of 8.3%, and a solid pension scheme;
• The flexibility to work (partially) from home;
• A minimum of 232 leave hours in case of full-time employment based on a formal workweek of 38 hours. A full-time employment in practice means 40 hours a week, therefore resulting in 96 extra leave hours on an annual basis.
• Free access to sports facilities on campus;
• A family-friendly institution that offers parental leave (both paid and unpaid);
• You will have a training programme as part of the Twente Graduate School where you and your supervisors will determine a plan for a suitable education and supervision;
• We encourage a high degree of responsibility and independence, while collaborating with close colleagues, researchers and other staff.
• Starting date of the position: 1 September 2023.

The FMT group is part of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) at the University of Twente. Our central goal is to develop formal techniques and tools to support the development of complex systems, and increase the reliability of the high-tech systems that we all rely on, both as individuals and as society.