Dear all,

We are looking to hire a PhD student for a term of three years at the Chair for Fundamentals of Natural Language Processing (https://www.uni-bamberg.de/en/nlproc/) at the University of Bamberg in Germany, starting either May 1 2026 or as soon as possible thereafter. The position will be part of the project "Relating Probabilities of Words to Probabilities of Worlds (PoWPoW)", to be funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Priority Programme LaSTing (https://www.lasting-spp.org/). The project’s goal is to investigate how LLMs represent and reason about probabilistic world knowledge. Within this scope, the project will explore methods for eliciting probability judgments from LLMs, test how well such judgments agree with empirical probabilities, investigate the internal consistency of related probability judgments, and compare LLMs’ probabilistic reasoning to that of humans.

The full details can be found here:

https://www.uni-bamberg.de/fileadmin/abt-personal/Homepage_ab_2016-03/10_Stellenausschreibungen/02_Wissenschaftliche_Beschaeftigte/2026_02_28_WiAi_LS_Grdl_Sprachverarbeitung_EN.pdf

Applicants should have:

• M.Sc. or comparable degree in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, or a related area.
• Experience working with NLP methods and LLMs.
• Strong grasp of probability theory – experience with graphical models or formal logic a bonus.
• Good knowledge and practical experience with deep learning.
• Very good command of English; German knowledge is not essential.
• Ability to work in a team, excellent communication skills, enthusiasm, and intrinsic motivation.

If you would like to apply, please send your application to Sean Papay <sean.papay@uni-bamberg.de>. Your application should be a single .pdf file, comprising a brief motivation letter, your CV, the contact details of two references, and an academic writing sample -- for example, your Master's Thesis or an academic paper previously written by you.

Best regards,

--Sean Papay