1-2 Doctoral Researchers in Human-Centered World Model for Human-Robot Interaction
About this role
The Department of Computing is looking for one to two Doctoral Researchers to join a research group of ELLIS PI, Associate Professor Xucong Zhang. You will be working alongside colleagues from academia, ELLIS Institute Finland community and industry.
The fixed-term employment starts in November 2026 (or by mutual agreement) and the length of the position is four years (48 months).
The research group fosters a collaborative and innovative environment with ELLIS Institute Finland and University of Turku, pushing the boundaries of AI and Foundation Model research with a strong emphasis on real-world impact. Our work bridges technical sophistication with real-world applications, exploring fundamental research questions in multiple human interactive behavior modeling, understanding, and generation, with the aim of natural human-AI interaction. We aim to build a world-model containing multiple virtual human avatars interaction for large-scale training data generation, insert the social aspect of interaction, and train the interactive model to drive the intelligent agent.
ELLIS Institute Finland ( ) is a newly established world-class research hub in AI and machine learning. We are developing an ecosystem of top talents, businesses and investments in Finland, with fundamental machine learning research at the core. The Institute is part of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS), which aims to build a pan-European institution for machine learning research.
Job description
We are seeking highly motivated and talented Doctoral Researchers to join our dynamic team. The successful candidates will contribute to cutting-edge research at the intersection of World Model, Human-AI Interaction, and Generative AI. This position offers a unique opportunity to conduct fundamental and applied research on the next generation of AI systems for addressing critical challenges.
Research Areas of Focus:
The successful candidate(s) will engage in research