Open Position: Student Researchers / Developers

The Cybersecurity research group (https://cybersecurityresearch.at/), headed by Prof. Elisabeth Oswald, is a relatively new group established in Austria’s sunny south. The group currently features a diverse range of members (from France, Iran, India, and China).

Current members work on topics such as leakage profiling, advanced leakage simulators, attacks (utilizing deep learning), statistical foundations, and hardware aspects of side channels. The group receives funding from the ERC, as well as local funding, and thus offers a supportive research environment (both financially as well as from a human perspective).

The group is looking for support with its ongoing projects via paid student researchers. You could work for us some months, e.g. during the summer (via an internship), or join us for longer (only part-time). We consider students both on bachelor and master courses,provided they are in the areas of computer science, computer engineering, mathematics (if it includes some programming), or statistics/data science (provided you can at least do some scripting).

You do not need to be based in Klagenfurt, working from home is possible.

The projects that we are looking to support require skills in (either)

  • compilers/languages to support the secure implementation of cryptographic primitives, including the use of formal verification tools,
  • machine/deep learning
  • secure implementations (low-level programming, e.g. ARM assembly, RISC-V assembly)
  • software development (C++)

You will work with young scientists from across the globe (the current group members are from France, Iran, India and China), so good English language skills are vital too.

We will appoint multiple researchers, and the starting date is flexible.  Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. To apply please send a brief motivation letter, your CV, and transcripts of records of your MSc/BSc to the contact below.

The rates will depend on your highest level of education: they are at € 1.073,10 per month for a part-time employment.

Please contact Elisabeth [dot] Oswald [at] aau [dot] at for informal inquiries and to submit your application.

Open Position: Postdoctoral Research in Cybersecurity

The Cybersecurity research group (https://cybersecurityresearch.at/), headed by Prof. Elisabeth Oswald, is a relatively new group established in Austria’s sunny south. The group currently features a diverse range of members (from France, Iran, India, and China).

Current members work on topics such as leakage profiling, advanced leakage simulators, attacks (utilizing deep learning), statistical foundations, and hardware aspects of side channels. The group receives funding from the ERC, as well as local funding, and thus offers a supportive research environment (both financially as well as from a human perspective).

The group is looking to grow by one post-doctoral researcher and is particularly keen to expand their existing coverage of topics and  seeks researchers with an interest in (any of the following areas)

  • compilers/languages to support the secure implementation of cryptographic primitives
  • machine/deep learning
  • secure implementations (in particular in the context of RISC-V)

A good candidate for this position will have a background in either computer science, maths, or statistics (an MSc level degree with above-average grades is required), will have some relevant publications in any of these subjects in international conferences or journals, enjoy working with people in an international context, and love water, sun, and mountains.

The position is available immediately, applications will be considered on a rolling basis and we will fill the vacancy as soon as a suitable candidate is identified. To apply please send a brief
motivation letter, your CV, and transcripts of records of your MSc and BSc to the contact below.

The position has funding until 31.08.2023 at € 3.945,90 per month.

Luftbild

Luftbild | Foto: LakesideLabs

Please contact Elisabeth [dot] Oswald [at] aau [dot] at for informal enquiries and to submit your application.

Master in Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity

Interested in the future of technology? Then this jointly-run MSc programme might be the perfect fit for you! The universities of Klagenfurt and Udine collaborate to offer this highly focused program on the core subjects of Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity with an additional emphasis on the social, ethical and legal aspects that arise in practice.

The MSc in Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity is a two-year taught programme. It consists of three semesters of taught courses followed by a research project leading to the submission of a thesis and its defence at the end of the fourth term.

Over 50 students from all around the globe registered in the premiere of this MSc in October 2020 (all lectures were held online). The hands-on classes, the profound theoretical inputs as well as the multidisciplinary approaches were the major cornerstones making this first semester a huge success.

The application for the summer semester of 2021 is now open and students who are interested in this MSc will find more information here:

https://www.aau.at/en/studien/master-artificial-intelligence-and-cybersecurity/

Master Thesis: “Goal Reasoning and Action Planning under Dynamics and Uncertainty”

Exogenous changes, sensing information and human-robot interaction turn plan generation and execution for autonomous intelligent agents into inherently dynamic and recurring tasks. First of all, multiple and sometimes conflicting goals need to be prioritized, where the success chances of plans for achieving the goals need to be taken into account. Moreover, plans may be based on sensing information, where the information acquisition and predictive evaluation of possible outcomes must be incorporated into the planning process. In multi-agent decision making, which particularly includes human-robot collaboration, reasoning about the capabilities, knowledge and goals of other agents is important to coordinate joint operations. Last but not least, real-world scenarios are subject to exogenous and often unpredictable changes in the environment; e.g., autonomous vehicles must constantly monitor the traffic to take safe actions.

In the light of these challenges, the goal of the Master thesis is to develop a demonstrator for dynamic goal reasoning and action planning in a selected application scenario from the robotics domain. The Master thesis will be co-supervised by members of the Department of Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity at the University of Klagenfurt and the JOANNEUM RESEARCH Robotics Institute at the Lakeside Science & Technology Park. This collaboration offers a unique opportunity to showcase Artificial Intelligence methods for planning and optimization in a practically relevant robotics environment, set up in simulation or even physically.

The following are some (incomprehensive) literature references, which can be consulted as a starting point for getting better intuition of the Master thesis topic and relevant research targets:

  • M. Rizwan, V. Patoglu, E. Erdem. Human Robot Collaborative Assembly Planning: An Answer Set Programming Approach. Theory and Practice of Logic Programming, 20(6): 1006-1020, 2020. https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.03496
  • B. Schäpers, T. Niemueller, G. Lakemeyer, M. Gebser, T. Schaub. ASP-Based Time-Bounded Planning for Logistics Robots. International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, 2018. https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICAPS/ICAPS18/paper/download/17777/16944
  • P. Mazdin, M. Barcis, H. Hellwagner, B. Rinner: Distributed Task Assignment in Multi-Robot Systems based on Information Utility. International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, 2020. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9216982
  • B. Reiterer, M. Hofbaur. Opportunistic Planning with Recovery for Robot Safety. German Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2017. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-67190-1_31

The Master thesis topic is suitable for students of Applied Informatics, Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity, Information Technology or Information Management. For further information, please contact Univ.-Prof. Dr. Martin Gebser (Martin [dot] Gebser [at] aau [dot] at), research group for Production Systems.