PhD student position in Secure and Private Machine Learning Mechanisms

Information about the department and the division
The Department of Computer Science and Engineering is a joint department at Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg, with activities on two campuses in the city of Gothenburg. The department has around 270 employees from over 30 countries. Our research has a wide span, from theoretical foundations to applied systems development. We provide high quality education at Bachelor's, Master's and graduate levels, offering over 120 courses each year. We also have extensive national and international collaborations with academia, industry and society.

We are looking for an excellent, motivated, self-driven doctoral student to work in the area of information security and cryptography. The position is for five years at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, within the division of Networks and Systems and the Systems Security group, who are doing research on fields ranging from secure and private computing, cryptographic primitives, secure and private machine and or distributed learning, vehicular security, authentication, intrusion detection and response.

Major responsibilities
The PhD student will join the Prof. Mitrokotsa's group, working in the area of information and communication security and machine learning with a focus on mechanisms and protocols for secure and private machine learning. More precisely, we envision secure and privacy-preserving machine learning algorithms for artificial intelligence applications in everyday life that can provide confidentiality and integrity guarantees. In particular the main aims of the project are to: (i) Safeguard the privacy of individuals that participate by either providing their data to build the AI system or being end-users of the system, (ii) safeguard the integrity of the system by ensuring its robustness to adversarial inputs and cryptographically limiting the possible points of adversarial manipulation.

The PhD student will be supervised by Prof. Katerina Mitrokotsa and Prof. Christos Dimitrakakis and will have the chance to collaborate with well-known researchers in the area of information security and machine learning.

Position summary
Full-time temporary employment. PhD student positions are limited to five years and normally include 20 per cent departmental work, mostly teaching duties. Salary for the position is as specified in Chalmers' general agreement for PhD student positions. Currently the starting salary is 30,000 SEK a month before tax. The position is intended to start in Sept-Oct 2020.

Qualifications
To qualify as a PhD student, you must have a master's level degree corresponding to at least 240 higher education credits in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics or in a related discipline.

Experience in one or more of cryptography, machine learning, differential privacy, probability and statistics are beneficial. Mathematical maturity is essential. As for all PhD studies, a genuine interest and curiosity in the subject matter and excellent analytical and communication skills, both oral and written, are needed.

Students that are expected to receive the MSc degree (or equivalent) in 2020 are also encouraged to apply. Knowledge of Swedish is not a prerequisite for applying since English is our working language for research, and we publish internationally. Both Swedish and English are used in undergraduate courses. Half of our researchers and PhD students at the department come from more than 30 different countries. Chalmers offers Swedish courses.

Chalmers continuously strives to be an attractive employer. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

Our offer to you
Chalmers offers a cultivating and inspiring working environment in the dynamic city of Gothenburg. 
Read more about working at Chalmers and our benefits for employees.

READ MORE AND APPLY HERE

Application deadline: 3 April, 2020

For questions, please contact:
Prof. Aikaterini Mitrokotsa (Networks and Systems), aikmitr@chalmers.se
Prof. Christos Dimitrakakis (Data Science), chrdimi@chalmers.se

*** Chalmers declines to consider all offers of further announcement publishing or other types of support for the recruiting process in connection with this position. *** 
   



Chalmers University of Technology conducts research and education in engineering sciences, architecture, technology-related mathematical sciences, natural and nautical sciences, working in close collaboration with industry and society. The strategy for scientific excellence focuses on our six Areas of Advance; Energy, Health Engineering, Information and Communication Technology, Materials Science, Production and Transport. The aim is to make an active contribution to a sustainable future using the basic sciences as a foundation and innovation and entrepreneurship as the central driving forces. Chalmers has around 11,000 students and 3,000 employees. New knowledge and improved technology have characterised Chalmers since its foundation in 1829, completely in accordance with the will of William Chalmers and his motto: Avancez!