Teaching and Research Associate

You want to understand how things are connected and make a fundamental impact on the development of the Next Generation Data Ecosystems and Artificial Intelligence?   We offer an environment where you can realize your full potential. At one of Europe’s largest and most modern business and economics universities. On a campus where quality of work is also quality of life. We are looking for support at the

Institute for Data, Process and Knowledge Management
Part-time, 30 hours/week
Starting March 01, 2025, and ending after 6 years   Our vision  In our research group on Data Management within the Institute for Data, Process and Knowledge Management at WU Vienna, we are convinced that the future of Artificial Intelligence and Datamanagement will be shaped by Open Knowledge Repositories such as Knowledge Graphs, as well as combined approaches (Hybrid AI) that leverage both unstructured text data, structured data, as well as other multi-modal data, inline, for instance, with respective recent AI roadmaps, and acknowledging fastly emerging disruptive trends and technologies (e.g. Generative AI, Quantum AI, etc.). As such, we are looking for candidates who are willing to work in an international, interdisciplinary team at the intersection of

• Artificial Intelligence (Symbolic, Generative, Hybrid)
• Data Management
• Knowledge Graphs
• GenAI) 

to jointly develop our vision of "Natural" Data Understanding and Intelligent Data Management. In our group we use a mix of approaches to combining methods to integrate and automate quality improvement of structured and non-structured data with a focus on leveraging and building Knowledge Graphs (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-01918-0) as a backbone for hybrid AI and sustainable Data Governance in the age of AI.    We expect candidates to join the team to have a strong background/interest in at least one of the above-mentioned fields and be willing to learn/combine and apply different methods, which is what you should emphasize in your motivation letter.    What we offer: We offer access to an excellent national and international interdisciplinary network of researchers with the ambition to boost AI at WU and in Austria, for instance through our research on foundations of AI in the recently funded “Bilateral AI” national Cluster of Excellence (https://www.bilateral-ai.net/). The institute also parttakes in and drives interdisciplinary research and networking activities on applying AI in various business domains through WU's recently founded Applied AI Network (https://www.wu.ac.at/en/applied-ai-network) and provides the necessary computing infrastructure through WU's cross-departamental Research Institute for Computational Methods (https://www.wu.ac.at/en/firm). 

What to expect

• Research life: Collaborate with your colleagues on ongoing research projects at the Institute. Support Institute research projects and set up your own projects with a focus on bringing the above outlined vision forward.
• Teaching: Plan, create and teach courses, such as foundational classes in Business Information Systems (Wirtschaftsinformatik) and assisting in classes on the MSc level in the area of Digital Economy.
• Supervise students: Advise students and co-supervise their theses and exams
• Build a personal network: Use the pre-doc phase to start building your personal network with contacts in research, industry, and business
• Organizational and administrative support: Support workshops and conferences we organize together with the Institute team on general tasks
• Writing a dissertation: You will be investigating your research topic and spending a third of your working hours on writing your dissertation.
• Exciting research projects on topics around Data Management, Data Governance, Knowledge Graphs, Artificial Intelligence and their applications in Industry and Business.
  • Opportunity to explore your own interests in these broad research areas 
  • Interdisciplinary research is encouraged.
  • Teamwork with intensive research mentoring
  • Participation in international conferences (e.g. ISWC, The WebConf, IJCAI, etc.) or topic-related summer schools
• Profit from and become part of our international research network with the opportunity for research visits to network partners.

What you have to offer

• Academic degree: You have completed or will shortly complete a master's degree that qualifies you for enrolling in a PhD program at WU in one of the following subject areas: 
  • Computer Science, Digital Economy, Information Technology, Software Engineering, Data Science, Information Systems, Business Informatics, Mathematics, Engineering, Social and economic sciences (e.g. Business Administration, Management or Economics) with a degree where you a specialized in field related to areas that fit our research vision.
• Language skills: You are fluent and able to express yourself very well in both spoken and written English. 
• Willingness to use multimedia teaching methods: You are prepared to use multimedia teaching and learning formats. 
• Additional skills: Experience and intermediate to very good skills in at least one of the following research areas contributing to our research vision is an advantage: 
  • Machine Learning
  • Logical reasoning
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Data Mining
  • Information Extraction
  • Semantic Web Technologies
  • Scalable and Decentralized Data Processing
  • Data Science Data Analytics a Statistics (including R or Python)
  • Database theory/Database query languages and query processing
  • Software engineering (e.g. Java, Python)
  • Emerging Paradigms such as Quantum Computing or GenAI and their foundations
  • Interdisciplinary research (such as for instance combining technical with empirical research methods)
  • Likewise, we appreciate: 
    • Teaching experience (e.g. prior experience in tutorials, workshops)
    • German language skills, or demonstrated willingness to learn languages
  • Research Experience:
    • Prior experience in terms of already co-authored scientific articles is a plus, but not required, please detail your experiences and motivation for academic research in the required motivation letter.

Do you want to join the Institute for Data, Process and Knowledge Management? Then please submit your application including 

• • Curriculum Vitae 
  • Motivation Letter)*
  • Transcript of your ongoing or finished Master’s Study
  • Master thesis (or pre-final draft: if your thesis is not yet finished we require an accompanying statement by the thesis main supervisor confirming feasibility of finishing your degree by March 2025)
  • If applicable: references for additional skills, such as research papers, certificates, teaching or tutoring experiences, (up to 3) recommendation letters from academic references

Note: the motivation letter should include:

• Your motivation (max 1 page) with respect to concrete (a) potential research topic(s), fitting with the institute’s vision; as an inspiration, you could comment your take on one of the following topics, which we investigate in the context one of our research projects, cf. https://www.bilateral-ai.net:

(1)  investigating and understanding the development and evolution of graph structures in real-world (Knowledge) Graphs (KGs)  (2)  connecting networks of KGs and other structured data corpora, leveraging ML and hybrid AI approaches (incl., for instance, foundation models and RAG), as well as graph modularization and federation techniques (3)  leveraging both symbolic constraints and graph embeddings and learning approaches to the field of graph data quality improvements & repairs.

• Your background: What in your CV particularly qualifies you for a PhD position?

If you have any questions regarding the position or application documents, don’t hesitate to contact me for further information at Prof. Axel Polleres (axel.polleres[at]wu.ac.at)

What we offer you

• Inspiring campus life with over 2,400 employees in research, teaching, and administration and approximately 21,500 students
• A modern campus with spectacular architecture in the heart of Vienna
• Excellent accessibility by public transportation
• Meaningful work in an open-minded, inclusive, and family-friendly environment
• Flexible working hours
• A wide range of benefits, from an in-house medical officer to athletic activities and a meal allowance to a variety of employee discounts

Curious? Visit our website and find out more at www.wu.ac.at/benefits

The minimum monthly gross salary amounts to €2,786.10 (14 times per year). This salary may be adjusted based on job-related prior work experience. In addition, we offer a wide range of attractive social benefits.

Do you want to join the WU team?
Then please submit your application by February 05, 2025 (ID 2303).
We are looking forward to hearing from you!