PhD Position in Foundation Models for Medical Reasoning
100%, Basel, fixed-term
The research group led by Michael Moor is seeking a motivated PhD candidate to focus on medical reasoning with foundation models. We are looking for an ambitious individual eager to conduct pioneering research in medical AI. Our objective is to enhance the capabilities and reliability of medical reasoning models in diverse contexts. The successful candidate will join a cutting-edge research group that is at the forefront of developing medical foundation models, agent systems, and reasoning models.
Job Description
- Develop novel methods that enhance the reasoning capabilities of medical foundation models (LLMs, MLLMs, and multi-agent systems).
- Design multimodal retrieval-augmentation strategies that integrate EHRs, clinical guidelines, imaging databases, and other structured knowledge sources.
- Implement flexible memory and retrieval systems to support reasoning-chain generation and sequential decision-making in clinical tasks.
- Develop approaches to minimize hallucinations and improve the reliability and robustness of medical AI systems, including adversarial robustness (in collaboration with SHS).
- Post-train and test multimodal foundation models at various scales.
- Co-develop a new benchmark for multimodal clinical reasoning and explainable sequential decision-making.
- Publish research results in leading ML venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR) and top-tier biomedical journals (e.g., Nature Medicine, Nature Biomedical Engineering).
- Participate in collaborations across the MLCARE consortium, including funded secondments to the Max Planck Institute and Siemens.
- Engage in dissemination, open-source contributions, and knowledge-transfer activities.
Profile
- Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, or a closely related field; or
- Master's degree in Medicine (MD) with strong Python skills and some ML experience.
- Strong programming skills in Python and experience with modern ML stacks (PyTorch, HuggingFace, distributed training).
- Experience in LLMs, vision-language models, multimodal learning, or clinical NLP is highly regarded.
- For computational candidates: experience in large-scale ML training (multi-node setups, distributed training) is a significant advantage.
- Good computational engineering practices: version control, reproducible pipelines, batch job management, etc.
- Ability to work independently, contribute to team efforts, and communicate effectively in English.
- Prior research experience, publications, or industry ML experience are beneficial but not required.
Workplace
The PhD position is based at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), located in Basel, a major hub for medical and biomedical research and biotechnology.
We Offer
- A full-time, fully funded MSCA Doctoral Network position at ETH Zurich, one of the world's leading research universities.
- Our group is engaged with the ETH AI Center and SwissAI initiative, providing access to a vibrant and world-class AI community.
- Access to cutting-edge computational resources, including large GPU clusters and medical and biomedical collaborations.
- Participation in the Europe-wide MLCARE consortium for exchange and collaborations.
- Employment in a highly interdisciplinary environment at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) in Basel.
We Value Diversity and Sustainability
In line with our values, ETH Zurich fosters an inclusive culture. We promote equality of opportunity, value diversity, and cultivate a working and learning environment where the rights and dignity of all our staff and students are respected. Visit our Equal Opportunities and Diversity website to learn how we ensure a fair and open environment that enables everyone to thrive. Sustainability is a core value for us, and we are continuously working towards a climate-neutral future.
Curious? So Are We.
We look forward to receiving your online application using the form below.
Only applications matching the job profile will be considered.
About ETH Zurich
ETH Zurich is one of the world's leading universities specializing in science and technology. We are renowned for our exceptional education, cutting-edge fundamental research, and direct transfer of new knowledge into society. Over 30,000 individuals from more than 120 countries consider our university a place that fosters independent thinking and inspires excellence. Located in the heart of Europe while connecting globally, we work together to develop solutions for the challenges of today and tomorrow.