Join the group

PhD students, postdocs, student assistants and interns in the Machine Learning & Optimization group at the CISPA Helmholtz Center.

How to apply

I am growing my group, so please feel free to reach out even if there is no specific opening advertised. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and I might not respond to generic requests.

PhD students. Positions are funded from the group's budget and projects. Openings are not always posted as soon as they exist, so please apply even if nothing is currently listed here.

Postdocs. There are two ways to join:

  • Funded by the group. Postdoc positions are paid from the group's budget and projects, currently the ERC project CollectiveMinds and a DFG project on deep learning optimization and transformer training. Open positions are advertised on this page, but I review applications whether or not one is currently listed.
  • Your own funding. I am glad to support strong candidates in applying for a fellowship, and I am happy to host researchers who already hold a grant. For this route, get in touch 6 to 12 months before you plan to move, so there is time to put an application together.

Please fill in the form for the position you are applying for, and send me an email at stich@cispa.de with your CV, a research statement and your motivation, mentioning which position you are applying for.

  • PhD position Fully funded, four years, on the E13 scale.
  • Postdoc For researchers who want to develop their own agenda alongside the group's projects.
  • HiWi Paid research work for students in Germany, before completing a master's degree.
  • Internship or visit For international students and visiting researchers.

I also supervise through the ELLIS PhD & Postdoc Program, which runs one central annual call for all participating European institutions. If you apply there and would like to work with me, please also send me a short email so I can look out for your application.

What I look for

Projects typically fall within the research directions described on the main page: optimization for machine learning, scalable and distributed learning, collaborative and personalized learning, and continual learning and machine unlearning.

Across all roles, I am particularly interested in candidates who enjoy formulating precise questions, moving between theory and experiments, and developing ideas beyond an initial project description.

The working language of the group is English. Knowledge of German is not required.

PhD students

  • An excellent MSc degree in mathematics, statistics, computer science or a related discipline
  • A solid mathematical foundation: probability theory, statistics, calculus and linear algebra
  • Experience in optimization, machine learning or data science, or with a framework such as PyTorch, is a plus

Postdocs

I look for researchers with a strong record and a clear emerging research identity. Postdocs are encouraged to develop an independent agenda while collaborating with the students and other researchers in the group.

What we offer

  • A full-time contract on the E13 scale, with social security benefits and 30 days of vacation. See also this blog post about life as a PhD student in Germany by a CISPA colleague.
  • Room to shape your own research direction, with regular one-to-one supervision
  • A research environment at CISPA and, through ELLIS, across the European machine learning community
  • Travel support for conferences, and support for research visits and exchanges
  • Ongoing collaborations with groups in Europe, North America and Asia

For PhD positions, the initial contract duration is one year, extended on passing the qualification exam and meeting the admission criteria for the graduate school.

HiWi and internships

HiWi, student assistant

If you are a student at Saarland University, or elsewhere in Germany, before completing your master's degree, you can apply for paid research work of up to 19 hours a week. Please use the HiWi form.

  • As a HiWi you will assist the research in our group by working on a project.
  • You are expected to take part in the activities of the group and to collaborate with other members.
  • The position aims to help you work out whether a PhD in our group is a suitable path for you.

Internships and research visits

Visitors who bring their own funding are by far the easiest to host, and are preferred. That can be your own fellowship or stipend, or an arrangement in which your home university continues to pay you for the duration of the visit.

If that is not possible, apply anyway and we will see what can be arranged.

If you can stay for six months or more, a paid position is sometimes possible. For shorter visits we cannot currently offer payment, though CISPA is working on this. In either case, ask: what we can contribute depends on the arrangement.

To reach me directly, use the internship form.

Practical notes

  • If you need a visa, please apply at least six months before your desired starting date.
  • Please note that I may not be able to respond to every email immediately, but I will do my best to reply as soon as possible.

For the group's research, publications and news, see mlolab.org. For my own work, see the main page.