Research Assistant: Explainable AI for Intrusion Detection Systems 40 - 50 %

School: School of Engineering
Starting date: 01.03.2026 or by appointment

• Join the Explainable AI research group at the ZHAW Centre for Artificial Intelligence as a Research Assistant, contributing to a project aiming to explore the potential of explainable AI approaches for enhancing the operational adoption of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS)
• Acquire, analyze, and preprocess intrusion detection datasets from public benchmarks and real-world sources, and implement reproducible data pipelines with standardized preprocessing, data splits, and documented provenance
• Design, implement, and evaluate various anomaly detection models for IDS, including transformer models, graph-based models, diffusion-based models and their combinations
• For the best couple of models, design, integrate and evaluate different explainable AI (XAI) techniques and experiment with large language models (LLMs) to aggregate and synthesize heterogeneous explanation outputs into human-readable summaries
• Conduct comprehensive experimental evaluation and perform comparative analysis of the developed methodologies considering predictive performance, explainability and operationalization
• Contribute to the development of an operational demonstrator showcasing explainable AI for intrusion detection
• Support the preparation of technical reports, scientific publications, and presentation materials for conferences and workshops

• A recent, excellent Bachelor's or Master's degree in computer science, AI, data science, or a related technical/scientific field, with focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence
• A strong interest AI methodology and AI explainability, with prior experience in these domains being advantageous
• Proficiency in software development in Python and familiarity with deep learning frameworks and tools like PyTorch
• Experience with Intrusion Detection Systems is beneficial
• Possess strong intrinsic motivation, creative problem-solving abilities for complex challenges, meticulous and dependable work habits, and capability to function effectively both independently and collaboratively within international, interdisciplinary teams
• Excellent English language skills
• In exchange, we provide the opportunity to dive into cutting-edge AI methodologies to address open research challenges with substantial practical impact

We are looking for a deeply interested, technically skilled personality. Please honor us with a tailored cover letter and highlight facts that underline your ability to achieve high. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW is one of Switzerland's largest multidisciplinary universities of applied sciences, with over 14'000 students and 3'400 faculty and staff.

As one of the leading Engineering Faculties in Switzerland, the ZHAW School of Engineering emphasises topics which will be relevant in the future. Our 14 institutes and centres guarantee superior-quality education, research and development with an emphasis on the areas of energy, mobility, information and health.

The Centre for Artificial Intelligence (CAI) maintains a growing number of research groups in the fields of Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision, Perception and Cognition, Autonomous Learning Systems, Trustworthy AI and AI Engineering. The CAI conducts method-oriented applied research and development at the highest level in the field of machine learning and is committed to a human-centered approach to artificial intelligence, thereby actively shaping the ethical dimension.

ZHAW is committed to gender-mixed and diverse teams in order to promote equality, diversity and innovation.