PhD fellowship in causality and machine learning for treatment decisions, jointly at the Pioneer Centre for AI and the Pionee...
The start date is 1 April 2027 or as soon as possible. We are willing to accommodate the successful candidate’s situation, and the exact date is a matter of agreement.
The setup: one project, two centres You will be supervised by Sebastian Weichwald (Associate Professor at MATH, Copenhagen Causality Lab, and causality co-lead at the Pioneer Centre for AI) and Erin Gabriel (Professor at the Department of Public Health, causality theme lead and co-director of SMARTBiomed), and work closely with the assistant professor hired at Public Health also working jointly at the two centers, so that the link between the centres runs through daily work, not only meetings.
Causal inference is a theme both centres share and approach from two sides. This position is for someone who wants both.
About the centres: The Pioneer Centre for AI (https://www.aicentre.dk/), hosted by the Department of Computer Science with partners across Danish universities, does fundamental AI research. The Pioneer Centre for SMARTBiomed (https://smartbiomed.dk/) develops statistical and computational methods for large-scale biomedical data to improve the treatment and prevention of disease.
The project In diabetes management, continuous glucose monitoring is a high-frequency biomarker that is often used in treatment decisions. Given the huge amount of information summaries must be used; differences in summaries can lead to different decisions from the same raw data. Treatment and prevention decisions increasingly rest on high-dimensional or high-frequency patient data such as biomarkers, wearable-device streams, omics profiles and longitudinal health records. In practice these are reduced to scores, coarser summaries, learned representations or patient states before a decision is made. The project asks when such a reduced representation still supports choosing between interventions, what is lost when it does not, and how representations can be learned with the decision in mind. It starts with the decision and works backwards to the measurements, transformations and assumptions that decision needs. This project aims to answer some of these questions in general, and to provide specific solutions In diabetes management.
Who are we looking for? The key requirement is competence: a master’s-level background with a high level of mathematical and computational training, for example from studies in statistics, mathematics, computer science or a nearby field, and an interest in causal inference. You should be interested in biomedical applications, ideally with some prior exposure through a thesis, a project, an internship or a collaboration, and willing to talk to and learn from clinicians and biomedical researchers about the context in which the methods will be used. Programming skills and willingness to turn methods into reusable software are expected.
About the department
The department has about 50 permanent scientific staff members, around 60 PhD students and 35 postdocs. It has strong research groups in many areas of mathematics and active PhD, postdoc, and visitors’ programs. Our buildings are located in central Copenhagen next to the central park Fælledparken. Our website https://www.math.ku.dk/english provides more information about the department and the research conducted at the department https://www.math.ku.dk/english/research/. We offer creative and stimulating working conditions in a dynamic and international research environment.
The PhD programme
Depending on your level of education, you can undertake the PhD programme as either:
Option A: A three year full-time study within the framework of the regular PhD programme (5+3 scheme), if you already have an education equivalent to a relevant Danish master’s degree.
Option B: An up to five year full-time study programme within the framework of the integrated MSc and PhD programme (the 3+5 scheme), if you do not have an education equivalent to a relevant Danish master´s degree – but you have an education equivalent to a Danish bachelors´s degree.
Option A: Getting into a position on the regular PhD programme
Qualifications needed for the regular programme To be eligible for the regular PhD programme, you must have completed a degree programme, equivalent to a Danish master’s degree (180 ECTS/3 FTE BSc + 120 ECTS/2 FTE MSc) related to the subject area of the project, e.g. statistics, mathematics, or computer science. For information of eligibility of completed programmes, see General assessments for specific countries and Assessment database.
Terms of employment in the regular programme Employment as PhD fellow is full time and for maximum 3 years.
Employment is conditional upon your successful enrolment as a PhD student at the PhD School at the Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen. This requires submission and acceptance of an application for the specific project formulated by the applicant with the help of the supervisor.
Terms of appointment and payment according to the agreement between the Danish Ministry of Taxation and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State. The position is covered by the Protocol on Job Structure.
Option B: Getting into a position on the integrated MSc and PhD programme
Qualifications needed for the integrated MSc and PhD programme
If you do not have an education equivalent to a relevant Danish master´s degree, you might be qualified for the integrated MSc and PhD programme, if you have an education equivalent to a relevant Danish bachelor´s degree. Here you can find out, if that is relevant for you: General assessments for specific countries and Assessment database.
Terms of the integrated programme
To be eligible for the integrated scholarship, you are (or are eligible to be) enrolled at one of the faculty’s master programmes.
Students on the integrated programme will enroll as PhD students simultaneously with completing their enrollment in this MSc degree programme.
The duration of the integrated programme is up to five years and depends on the amount of credits that you have passed on your MSc programme. For further information about the study programme, please see: www.science.ku.dk/phd, “Study Structures”.
Until the MSc degree is obtained (when exactly two years of the full 3+5 programme remains), the grant will be paid partly in the form of up to 48 state education grant portions (in Danish: “SU-klip”) plus salary for work (teaching, supervision etc.) totalling a workload of 150 working hours per year. A PhD grant portion is currently (2026) DKK 7.426 before tax.
When you have obtained the MSc degree, you will transfer to the salary-earning part of the scholarship for a period of two years. At that point, the terms of employment and payment will be according to the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State (AC). The position is covered by the Protocol on Job Structure.
Responsibilities and tasks:
- Complete and pass the MSc education in accordance with the curriculum of the MSc programme (ONLY when you are attending the integrated MSc and PhD programme)
- Carry through an independent research project under supervision
- Complete PhD courses corresponding to approx. 30 ECTS / ½ FTE
- Participate in active research environments, including a stay at another research institution, preferably abroad
- Teach and carry out knowledge dissemination activities
- Write scientific papers aimed at internationally recognized journals
- Write and defend a PhD thesis on the basis of your project
- Take part in the activities of both Pioneer Centres and spend time in both research environments
- Professional qualifications relevant to the PhD project, in particular a strong foundation in probability, statistics and/or machine learning at advanced master’s level
- Interest in and some exposure to biomedical applications, and willingness to work with clinicians and biomedical researchers
- Evidence of research ability in any form: a master’s thesis, a project, an internship or open-source work counts as much as a preprint; prior publications are not required
- Programming skills and interest in producing reusable, open software
- A curious mind-set with a strong interest in Mathematics and its applications
- Good English skills
Your application including all attachments must be in English and submitted electronically by clicking APPLY NOW below.
Please include:
- Motivation letter (approximately 1.5 pages)
Propose your own angle on the project and argue how it fits the two groups and the wider network, including the Pioneer Centre for AI and SMARTBiomed. Tell us why this joint setup: what you expect from working across both groups that you would not get from either side alone or from an industrial machine learning lab, and how your background prepares you for it, including any experience with biomedical or other applied collaborations. - Curriculum vitae (max. two pages) including information about your education, experience, language skills and other skills relevant for the position.
- About you (max. one page, in prose). Tell us about the thing you are most proud of. We do not mean grades or prizes, but something you made or worked out: a report that was never published, a tool, a result, a course or side project. Say what it is and why it matters to you. Use the rest of the page for anything else you want us to know: people you have worked with, circumstances we should take into account when reading your CV, or context that does not fit a CV.
- Original diplomas for Bachelor or Master and transcript of records in the original language, including an authorized English translation if issued in another language than English or Danish. If not completed, a certified/signed copy of a recent transcript of records or a written statement from the institution or supervisor is accepted.
We shortlist on the written application as a whole, weighing motivation and fit with the joint setup, the mathematical and statistical foundation relevant to the project, evidence of research ability in any form, and interest in biomedical applications. Publications are neither required nor an assessment criterion, and we do not rank applicants by the reputation of their previous institution. Selected applicants are invited to interview. Interviews may span several conversations, e.g. a technical follow-up and a conversation with the leadership of both centres. As part of this we may ask you to give a short technical presentation on a topic of your choosing, or for a sample of your work. What matters to us there is whether we can discuss science together and how we would work with each other.
When you will be affiliated with the University of Copenhagen or otherwise have access to their research, you may be required to undergo a background screening. The purpose is to protect the security and research integrity of the University of Copenhagen.
Application deadline
The deadline for applications is 5 January 2027, 23:59 GMT +1.
We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline, and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.
The further process
After the deadline, a number of applicants will be selected for academic assessment (shortlisted) by a committee of unbiased experts. You are notified whether you will be passed for assessment.
An assessment committee will assess the qualifications and experience of the shortlisted applicants with respect to the research area, skills and other requirements. The assessors will conclude whether each applicant is qualified. The assessed applicants will have the opportunity to comment on their assessment. You can read about the recruitment process at https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/.
Questions
For specific information about the PhD fellowship, please contact the supervisors: Sebastian Weichwald (see https://sweichwald.de/#research-with-us) and Erin Gabriel (erin.gabriel@sund.ku.dk).
General information about PhD study at the Faculty of SCIENCE is available at the PhD School’s website: https://www.science.ku.dk/phd/.
The University of Copenhagen wishes to reflect the surrounding community and invites all regardless of personal background to apply for the position.
Please note in your application that you found the job at Jobindex
