Postdoctoral Researcher NLP for Evidence (GALENOS Project) F/M

Role Summary

The Human-Centred Health AI research group develops and applies artificial intelligence approaches to advance health, spanning the molecular, individual and societal scales. Our research has three main focus areas: AI for Biomolecules, AI for Evidence, and AI for Humans in Society.

We are looking for a talented and motivated Postdoctoral Researcher to join our interdisciplinary team working at the intersection of computational methods and health science, for the Wellcome Trust-funded GALENOS project. You will develop, improve, and apply state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) and time series modelling techniques to the published scientific literature on mental health, with the goal of accelerating evidence synthesis, identifying trends in research, and generating novel insights that can inform policy and practice. This is an exciting opportunity to do methodologically rigorous work with real-world impact.

Your specific tasks will include training and fine-tuning language models and time-series models, analysing research data, writing research publications, collaborating with a global interdisciplinary team, and contributing to the development of public-facing web interfaces for users to interact with models.

The project is for three years, full time, on-site at the Idiap Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland. Approximate start date: June

Application deadline: th April

Your Profile

Must have:

• PhD (or equivalent research experience) in a relevant field such as computer science, computational linguistics, data science, statistics, or a quantitative social or health science
• Strong programming skills in Python
• Experience with time series analysis as well as machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch and Transformers
• A track record of conducting rigorous, reproducible research, evidenced by publications and project outputs
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English

Nice to have:

• Experience working with biomedical or scientific literature, including PubMed, MEDLINE, or similar corpora
• Familiarity with evidence synthesis methodologies such as systematic reviews or meta-analysis
• Experience fine-tuning large language models for domain-specific tasks
• Familiarity with web development would be an asset
• Contributions to open-source projects or publicly available research code would be an asset
• Familiarity with the mental health research domain would be an asset

About Idiap

Idiap is a research institute of national importance that engages in fundamental research, education, and technology transfer in artificial intelligence. PhD students are formally registered at EPFL, one of the leading Technical Universities in Europe. Idiap offers competitive salaries and conditions in a dynamic and multicultural environment.

Idiap is located in Martigny, Valais, a scenic region in the south of Switzerland, surrounded by the highest mountains of Europe, and offering exceptional quality of life, exciting recreational activities, including hiking, climbing, and skiing, as well as varied cultural activities. English is the official working language.

At Idiap we place great emphasis on diversity, and we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong. Employment at Idiap is based solely on a person's merit and qualifications.

Required languages

• English - Level advanced