PhD Position Visual Data Efficiency

This PhD position is about fundamental visual recognition. It is in the CV lab of the PRB section, INSY department, TU Delft. The research is about understanding-based research for data efficient visual recognition. Current models use hundred millions of images; it is unclear where all this data comes from. The data is in the hands of large companies, who do not share their data. These companies have huge resources to process this data. This is problematic for the long tail of companies and universities doing research and working with visual recognition models, because they neither have such amounts of data available, nor do they have the computational resources to process this data. The goal of this 4‑year PhD project is to let current models use less data. With less data we can better curate it; that means that we can more easily control for important societal challenges such as privacy, copyright, energy use, and biases in the data.

The candidates need to have, or be in the process of finishing, a MSc degree with ample demonstrable experience in doing research through a research‑oriented project/thesis done in the field of visual recognition with a clear focus on understanding and/or efficiency. Include evidence of doing understanding‑based research in your application: please include a storyline of your research project as described here: https://jvgemert.github.io/storyline.pdf.

• MSc degree in fundamental visual recognition: understanding and/or efficient deep learning.

Doctoral candidates will be offered a 4‑year period of employment in principle, but in the form of 2 employment contracts. An initial 1.5-year contract with an official go/no go progress assessment within 15 months. Followed by an additional contract for the remaining 2.5 years assuming everything goes well and performance requirements are met.

Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, increasing from €3059 - €3881 gross per month, from the first year to the fourth year based on a full‑time contract (38 hours), plus 8% holiday allowance and an end‑of‑year bonus of 8.3%. As a PhD candidate you will be enrolled in the TU Delft Graduate School. The TU Delft Graduate School provides an inspiring research environment with an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff and a mentor. The Doctoral Education Programme is aimed at developing your transferable, discipline‑related and research skills. The TU Delft offers a customizable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged.

If you would like more information about this vacancy or the selection procedure, please contact Jan van Gemert via J.C.vanGemert@tudelft.nl.