Our Group

Modern machine learning is still limited to a superficial description of reality that only holds when the experimental conditions are fixed. It largely ignores interventions in the world, domain shifts, and temporal structure. Locatello’s group focuses on learning causal representations and causal models from data to address these issues. Through rigorous theory and scalable algorithms, they enable AI agents to understand cause-and-effect relationships, the effect of interventions, and distribution changes underlying the data they encounter.

Your Responsibilities

We are looking for postdoctoral researcher with background in causality and machine learning to help us push the frontiers of causal learning and its applications in science. Interested applicants must have a Ph.D. in relevant areas (e.g., machine learning or statistics) with a strong publication record in top conferences such as NIPS, ICML, ICLR, AISTATS, CVPR, etc. Interdisciplinary experience is not required, but you must bring a keen interest.

You will work on foundational causality and machine learning challenges, develop new methods, and join our quest to revolutionize other scientific areas with AI. You will lead projects, mentor PhD students, and collaborate with researchers in our interdisciplinary network to bring your novel approaches to impactful applications. We focus on general methodologies with cross-disciplinary impact. Ongoing projects target natural sciences such as biology, ecology, and climate. New areas are also welcome if you’d like to be the trailblazer and spearhead our efforts.

The position is fully funded for a period of two years and offers a very competitive salary as part of the FWF Cluster of Excellence on Bilateral AI. Extensions are possible

Your Profile

• PhD in Machine learning, statistics, or relevant area
• A strong publication record in top conferences such as NIPS, ICML, ICLR, AISTATS, CVPR, etc.
• A proven ability to conduct independent research, as well as to work effectively as a member of a research team
• Excellent command of English (working language)

Application documents: cover letter, CV, publication list, 3 references

To submit your application please email: francesco.locatello@ist.ac.at