The newly established Max Planck Research Group for Rationality Enhancement, headed by Dr. Falk Lieder at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, Germany, is looking for a postdoc or Ph.D. student (m/f) for a project at the intersection of psychology and machine learning.
The project
Our mission is to lay the cognitive and technological foundations for helping people become more effective. The goal of this PhD project is to understand and improve how people learn how to decide. You will combine process-tracing experiments with computational modeling to reverse-engineer the mechanisms of metacognitive learning. We will then validate the resulting theories by translating them into tools and interventions for helping people learn how to make better decisions.
What we are looking for
Applicants should have strong programming skills and prior experience with experimental and computational approaches to studying human cognition. The ideal applicant (m/f) would also be familiar with reinforcement learning, decision science, programming and running online experiments, and machine learning. Familiarity with cognitive training, probabilistic models of cognition, program induction, web/app development, and/or cognitive control would also be a plus.
How to apply
To apply for the postdoc position, please email your CV, a cover letter describing your motivation and relevant skills and research experience, selected publications or transcripts and your thesis/theses to re-jobs@tuebingen.mpg.de and arrange for 2-3 reference letters to be sent to the same address. Please submit your application by November 30 if possible.
For the PhD position, please submit a complete application to the Ph.D. program of the International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems (www.imprs.is.mpg.de) by November 15. To express your interest for this specific project please list Dr. Falk Lieder as one of the faculty members you are interested in working with and mention the project in your motivational letter. Please start your application as early as possible so that you will have enough time to submit all of the required documents (see https://imprs.is.mpg.de/application) on time. If you are planning to apply, please let me know and don't hesitate to ask me any questions you might have about the project, the lab, or anything else.