Two PhD positions at Saarland University and Konrad Zuse School of Excellence in Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELIZA)

The groups of Vera Demberg 
<https://www.uni-saarland.de/lehrstuhl/demberg.html>and Michael Hahn 
<https://lacoco-lab.github.io/>invite applications for two PhD positions 
at Saarland University, affiliated with the Konrad Zuse School of 
Excellence in Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELIZA).


### Topics


Position in Vera Demberg's group:

- computational models of pragmatics and/or theory of mind, with a focus 
on inferring the intent of the conversational partner during interaction

- experimental studies and computational models on how individual 
differences in human cognition affect human language processing


Position in Michael Hahn's group:

- abilities & limitations of transformers and other LLM architectures,

- LLM interpretability,

- foundations of LLM reasoning,

- foundations of AI safety.



### Key Information


The PhD positions are part of Saarland University research groups of the 
Konrad Zuse School of Excellence in Learning and Intelligent Systems 
(ELIZA) and will be located in Saarbrücken. Please see the ELIZA PhD 
Program Requirements and Arrangements for ELIZA-funded PhD students: 
https://eliza.school/opportunities/eliza-phd-program-fully-funded-positions


The positions are intended to begin at the earliest possible date (start 
date is negotiable in both directions, i.e., an earlier start as soon as 
August 2026 or a later start are possible).


Application deadline: June 18, 2026



### How to apply


Please find further information and application details here:


Position in Vera Demberg's group: 
https://www.uni-saarland.de/fileadmin/upload/verwaltung/stellen/Wissenschaftler/W2866.pdf


Position in Michael Hahn's group: 
https://www.uni-saarland.de/fileadmin/upload/verwaltung/stellen/Wissenschaftler/W2867.pdf



### About ELIZA and the Research Environment


ELIZA is a graduate school in Artificial Intelligence funded by the 
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Research and academic training 
within ELIZA focus on four key areas: (1) the foundations of Machine 
Learning (ML) — including ML-driven fields such as Computer Vision, 
Natural Language Processing (NLP), or Robot Learning —, (2) machine 
learning systems, (3) applications in autonomous systems, and (4) 
transdisciplinary applications of ML in other scientific domains, 
ranging from the life sciences to physics. Saarland University is one of 
the leading centers for computational linguistics and computer science 
in Europe and offers a dynamic and stimulating research environment. It 
is renowned for its interdisciplinary research in language, translation, 
computation and cognition. The groups are affiliated with the Department 
of Computer Science and with the Department of Language Science and 
Technology. The Department of Language Science and Technology comprises 
about 100 research staff in ten research groups in the fields of 
computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, speech processing, and 
corpus linguistics. Both departments are part of the Saarland 
Informatics Campus, which brings together 800 researchers and 2,000

students from 81 countries. We collaborate closely with the university's 
Department of Computer Science, the Max Planck Institute for 
Informatics, the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, and the 
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). Our 
researchers and students come from all over the world, and our primary 
working language is English.


If you have further questions, please email Vera Demberg 
<[email protected]> or Michael Hahn <[email protected]>.

-- 

Michael Hahn
Tenure-Track Professor
Saarland Informatics Campus
Saarland University
Group: https://lacoco-lab.github.io/
Personal: https://www.mhahn.info/

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