Call for Interest in PhD, Post-Doc and Visiting Positions on Continual, Decentralized Compositionality & Orchestration of Foundational Models
These grants are connected to the FIS-Stg COLLAGE project with an overall budget of 1.3M Euros
I am looking for expressions of interest from motivated prospective PhD stutends, Post-Docs & Visiting researchers at all levels to join my team at the University of Pisa, working on the project “COntinual, DecentraLized CompositionaLity for Sustainable Artificial IntelliGEnce” (COLLAGE).
What is COLLAGE about?
Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially through its recent machine learning developments has shown ground-breaking impacts on problems even unthinkable to solve a few decades ago. However, AI solutions nowadays often require significant amounts of resources to be created, used and maintained over time, showing dramatic issues in terms of efficiency, scalability and ultimately sustainability. This project focuses on the development of AI methodologies that could dramatically reduce the computational and memory resources needed to develop and maintain them over time.
COLLAGE approach is based on the fundamental concept of “reusability” with the main objective of developing a continual, decentralized, compositional building system for Sustainable AI solutions both on a methodological and software engineering level.
I plan to support this main objective through the buildout of a scientific foundation on AI solutions that can be incrementally built and adapted over time, the creation of decentralized protocols to share and re-use knowledge across different applications and compositionality methodologies to create new AI solutions starting from existing ones.
COLLAGE represents a non-incremental, groundbreaking shift in the context of Sustainable AI from an application-centric perspective tailored for specific use-cases to a structural and general sustainable approach by design. Despite its potentially disruptive impact, its feasibility is supported by initial promising results I developed and evidence from related fields. Ultimately, COLLAGE methodologies and results at the end of the project, validated through a proof-of-concept in the context of a decentralized “AI for Flood Forecasting” application in Europe, will show an alternative, more democratic and effective path towards the definition of a circular economy for AI development and applications.
Please be aware that perspective students will have to qualify for the position according with the existing National rules for PhD/Postdoc recruitment.
What I offer
These positions will be available in Pisa, Italy. However, short-medium remote working periods will be allowed with maximum flexibility. The quality of life in Pisa is exceptionally high: great food & wine, a large number of cultural, social and sporting activities, and just 20 minutes away from the mountains or sea. The candidate will also get the chance to learn Italian, make a lot of friends and join an inclusive and fun team with a great work-life balance culture.
The candidate will have the opportunity to work alongside top continual learning players through the ContinualAI research organization, spending periods abroad and working in synergy with other organizations across the world.
For PhDs. The base salary for a PhD position in the AI program is about 30K Euros as the gross annual salary with a 3-year scholarship. Depending on the quality of the candidate I can provide more support and benefits.
For Post-Docs. The base gross salary is 40K€ / year, up to 75K Euro / year depending on the specific experience of the candidate. These contracts are for 2 years with a 2 years possible extension.
For Visiting sudents / researchers. Financial support to be agreed case by case.
How to Apply
Just send an email to Vincenzo Lomonaco (vincenzo.lomonaco@unipi.it) with a brief introduction and a research statement (your research experience and vision in relationship with the COLLAGE project).
Deadline
We are always looking for exceptional people. Contact us to get more information about current opportunities (vincenzo.lomonaco@unipi.it).
