Fully-funded PhD position at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Intelligent Language Systems Lab

[Gozde Gul]

Intelligent Language Systems Lab at FAU Erlangen–Nürnberg is seeking applications for one fully funded PhD position. The key research areas include reasoning, interpretability, neuro-symbolic methods, memory and their intersections. The position offers a large degree of research freedom, however the overall goal is to advance LLM/VLMs for the long-tail of the distribution—i.e., unseen languages, tasks or domains—by developing novel ML/NLP/RL methods.

About the Lab: The lab is led by Gözde Gül Sahin. We regularly publish at top-tier *CL venues and are funded by international funding organizations. Our HPC Center offers access to powerful, well-maintained GPU clusters (https://doc.nhr.fau.de/clusters/overview/). More information can be found on our website: https://gglab-ku.github.io/

Your Profile: 

- Master of Science in computer science, computational linguistics or a related field before the PhD starting date

- Strong background in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning
- Excellent programming skills
- Proficiency in English (German not required)
- Ability to work independently and as part of an interdisciplinary team
- Positive attitude, enjoyment of research, and finding new solutions

Application:
Please email the following as a single pdf file to goezde.sahin [at] fau.de
- Cover letter, including your motivation for application (max. one page)
- A research statement outlining your research interests within the scope of the advertised position. It should propose a concrete research agenda you plan to develop during your PhD (up to two pages including references).
- Curriculum vitae (including your publication list (if available))
- Bachelors and Masters diplomas
- Transcripts
- Name and contact details of 2 referees

Applications until 01.07.2026 will be given full consideration, however the position will remain open until filled. Hence, feel free to inquire even if the deadline has passed. The preferred starting date is 15.09.2026 (or soon after)

Salary
This is a fully funded E13 position (100%). An approximate salary can be calculated using the following tool: https://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/c/t/rechner/tv-l/west?id=tv-l-2025.