Assistant Professorship (all genders) - Tenure Track

The Faculty of Informatics at TU Wien invites applications for a full time Assistant Professor position (all genders) with tenure track. The position has a focus on Foundations of Semantic Data and is affiliated with the Institute of Logic and Computation, Research Unit Knowledge Based Systems. The estimated starting date is March 2025. The work contract is initially limited to six years. The candidate and TU Wien can agree upon a tenure evaluation, which when positive, opens the possibility to change the position to Associate Professor with an unlimited contract.

TU Wien is among the most successful technical universities in Europe, and it is Austria’s largest scientific-technical research and educational institution. The Faculty of Informatics, one of the eight faculties at TU Wien, plays an active role in national and international research and has an excellent reputation. The main areas of research include Computer Engineering, Logic and Computation, Visual Computing & Human-Centered Technology, as well as Information Systems Engineering.

Tasks:

In our digital age, data is becoming increasingly essential for innovation and decision making. With the unprecedented diversity and sheer volume of data, and the rising complexity of integrating various data sources, data quality assurance and intelligent semantic data management are more critical than ever to support unbiased, trustworthy, accurate, and explainable decisions. A key challenge is validating and maintaining the quality of graph data using a new class of formalisms based on the notion of shape. To tackle these challenges, innovative solutions must address the entire data lifecycle encompassing data integration, seamless access, maintaining validity and integrity across systems, and managing inconsistent or dynamic data. TU Wien is looking for a candidate with a high profile in semantic data management and symbolic AI, with particular emphasis on logical foundations of data quality. The candidate should demonstrate a strong scientific background in managing data validity and information completeness, including foundational areas such as ontology, rule, and shape languages for graph data, and be capable of advancing the state of the art by developing bilateral AI approaches, which bridge the strengths of symbolic and subsymbolic reasoning.

The following non-exhaustive list highlights some of the areas which a successful candidate is expected to have demonstrated scientific expertise in:

• Managing data validity and integrity
• Data repairing, evolving data graphs
• Data quality and data incompleteness
• Shape-based languages for graph data
• Formalisms for semantic data (ontology and rule languages)
• Foundations of Semantic Technologies
• Query answering and query rewriting, data exchange

The ideal candidate should have relevant postdoctoral experience in securing third-party research funding and a compelling research vision. We expect publications in top conferences and/or journals in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Databases, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, and Semantic Web. We are particularly interested in candidates who will complement our existing expertise and lead to fruitful collaborations not only with other members of the Faculty of Informatics but with TU Wien in general.

Besides research, the duties of an Assistant Professor at TU Wien Informatics include graduate and undergraduate teaching (in English and German) as well as contributing to usual management and faculty service tasks. We expect the position holder to provide leadership in delivering and developing new courses, as well as to teach courses in all programs of the Faculty of Informatics.

Your profile:

Applicants are expected to have the following qualifications:

• PhD or doctoral degree in Computer Science or related subjects
• Post-doctoral experience at a university or other research institution
• Outstanding scientific reputation, proven by publications in internationally prestigious scientific conferences and journals, awards, scientific lectures, editorial and scientific expert work, organisation of conferences, workshops, etc.
• Outstanding research and publication record
• Excellent reputation in the international scientific community
• Experience in raising research funds and managing scientific research projects, in particular the acquisition and management of independent, early-career research projects (similar to an FWF Hertha Firnberg Project)
• Scientific research experience in a foreign country
• Experience in university teaching
• Pedagogical and didactic skills
• Administrative and organisational skills
• Experience in the supervision of scientific work of students, such as bachelor, diploma and master theses
• If the candidate’s knowledge of German is not sufficient, the willingness to learn German is expected

We offer:

• Excellent working conditions in an attractive research environment
• An attractive salary, including additional contributions to a pension fund
• Support for relocating to Vienna (if required)
• A position in a city with an exceptional quality of life
• Central location of workplace with very good accessibility (U1/U4 Karlsplatz)
• Additional benefits for employees can be found at the following link: Fringe-Benefit Catalogue of TU Wien

General information can be found at the following links:

• TU Wien
• Faculty of Informatics
• The 4 research foci of the Faculty of Informatics
• Institute of Logic and Computation
• Research Unit Knowledge Based Systems

Applications have to include the following documents:

• A detailed curriculum vitae
• A letter of motivation
• A list of publications sorted by journals, conference papers, and other publications
• A teaching statement: 2 pages maximum
• A research statement: brief summary of past research activities, as well as a convincing outline of planned research activities, and an explanation of their contribution to the scientific profile of the Faculty of Informatics; 4-6 pages maximum; incl. abstract
• Certificates of doctoral and diploma degrees; should be uploaded under the category: +add more documents
• Copies of the applicant’s three most important publications related to the position together with an explanation of their relevance; should be also uploaded under the category: +add more documents

The employment starts as University Assistant with a minimum salary of EUR 4,939.90 gross (14 x per year) according to the collective bargaining agreement for a PostDoc. After signing the qualification agreement, the employment continues as Assistant Professor with a minimum salary of EUR 5,808.20 gross (14 x per year).

We look forward to receiving your application until January 9th, 2025.