BACKGROUND:
PARENT (https://parenth2020.com) is an EU-funded project aiming for early diagnosis of newborn motor/cognitive impairments. PARENT combines the efforts of a multidisciplinary network of leading European research groups, industry partners, paediatric hospitals and parents' associations to develop a technological infrastructure that will train Early Stage Researchers (ESR) to conduct top-notch research in leading academic institutions, hospitals and industry R&D divisions. During the research there will be strong emphasis on career development and on achieving impact. PARENT multidisciplinary approach and technologies will make a critical contribution towards an open neurodevelopmental disease diagnostic software infrastructure by interlinking disciplines from clinical data, neuroimaging collection and processing, biomarkers, data fusion, machine learning applied to clinical data, novel prediction algorithms. PARENT approach can be included in the more general paradigm of evidence-based medicine, precision medicine and patient center-care, as well as decision support systems in clinical field.

The PhD offered and financed by TOELT LLC (Switzerland) (http://www.toelt.ai) is awarded by the University of Ljubljana (https://www.uni-lj.si/eng/). It will focus on developing new machine learning models and techniques in the fields of medicine and biochemistry. In particular on integrating data coming from atomistic and supramolecular simulations in terms of ncRNA (e.g., miRNA) folding properties, conformational dynamics, and binding energy for a target, into an artificial intelligent tool able to model the miRNAs biochemical pathway.

For details visit: http://toelt.ai/jobs/

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• You will participate in exciting multidisciplinary research in a collaborative network of top academic and industrial partners. The exact research direction will be decided together with the applicant and the supervisor.
• You will have access to leading edge computing infrastructure and expertise to support your research. As NVIDIA Partner for Deep Learning, you will be able to work on the most advanced techniques for deep learning on state-of-the-art hardware.
• You will work in an industrial environment and gain industrial experience.
• You will benefit from further continuing education through a dedicated training program in the various fields of expertise of the consortium partners through secondments, training, and workshops.
• To help your career development you will have access to training in transferable skills such as project management, communication skills, grant writing, exploitation of results, etc.

REQUIREMENTS:
The applicants can be of any nationality. There are specific criteria the applicant must fulfil to be eligible, as follows:
1) At the time of recruitment, the researcher must not have resided or carried out his/her main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the host organization (in this case Switzerland) for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to his/her recruitment. Short stays, such as holidays, are not taken into account.
2) ESR Candidates must be, at the time of recruitment by the host organization, in the first four years (full-time equivalent) of their research careers and have not yet been awarded a doctoral degree. This is measured from the date when they obtained the Master's degree that would formally entitle them to embark on a doctorate.
3) Applicants are not eligible if they have already been awarded a PhD.

PREFERENCES:

• You have a master's degree in physics, computer science, mathematics, engineering, or related field (if you have not obtained your diploma yet, but expect to do so in the near future, please apply already) and have an intermediate to advanced experience in Machine Learning related techniques.
• Python programming experience is required.
• Candidates with a strong machine learning background are preferred.
• In view of the international context, mastering of the English language is mandatory.

TERMS:

• The fellowship is awarded for a period of 3 years. It requires 40 hours per week (with 5 weeks holiday).
• You will benefit of a regular employment contract. The candidate will have to live in Switzerland for the 3 years of employment, in the greater Zürich area.

LOCATION:
Winterthur, Greater Zurich Area, Switzerland CH

HOW TO APPLY:
The following documents must be sent as pdf files IN A SINGLE EMAIL to the email address umberto.michelucci[at]toelt.ai:
1) Motivation Letter (max 2 pages)
2) Declaration to fulfill ESR Eligibility criteria of the Marie-Sklodowska Curie programme
3) Two reference contacts (Name, Surname, Role, Organization, Email). Reference contacts might be contacted to by the Organization/Company to provide a reference letter. Please send only reference contacts with whom you have done projects and/or research personally
4) A CV, including publications and GitHub repositories (if available) where your projects are visible;
5) A copy of a valid ID document (passport or other);
6) If possible, copies of educational certificates and transcript of records (course transcripts). This copies might be asked for in all steps of the evaluation.

DEADLINE:
15th April 2021

The selection procedure will be based on two steps:
1) screening of all applications received and selection of a shortlist of candidates based on presented documentation.
2) If you are shortlisted, you will be invited to a remote interview.