This postdoctoral position is in the context of the new ERC-funded project CulturAL. The project focuses on the development of methodologies for multilingual NLP and alignment of large language models (LLMs).

In the last few years, LLMs found wide adoption in many areas of societal life. Their development, however, requires access to a vast amount of data and resources in a given language, as well as considerable computational infrastructure. As a result, these models are in practice limited to a handful of widely-spoken languages, leaving over 6,000 of the world's languages and dialects without access to language technology. Furthermore, research on LLM alignment, which aims to ensure the safety of their use, has been almost exclusively directed toward the English-speaking world. Taken together, these problems lead to a major inequity in today's language technology and artificial intelligence more broadly.

In this project, we will develop a new methodology for cross-lingual transfer of LLMs to a wide-range of (low-resource, understudied) languages and dialects, and their alignment to diverse cultural contexts. In particular, we will explore techniques from the areas of few-shot learning, continual learning and modular deep learning, as well as different LLM alignment frameworks, based on reinforcement learning and direct preference optimisation, extending them to perform pluralistic alignment. To enhance model interpretability, we will also develop methods to better understand the mechanisms of cross-lingual transfer in LLMs and their cultural awareness.

We welcome applications from recent PhD graduates in relevant areas, such as artificial intelligence and natural language processing. An ideal candidate will have a strong technical background in natural language processing or machine learning, but also a keen interest in AI safety and alignment. Hands on experience with reinforcement learning from human feedback would be a plus.

You will become a member of the thriving and friendly Amsterdam NLU Lab. For more information about the project, please contact the supervisor, Ekaterina Shutova ([email protected]).

Tasks and responsibilities: 

• Carry out research as described in the project proposal;
• Present and publish at key international conferences and in leading journals;
• Contribute your expertise to joint research projects within the research group;
• Participate in and contribute to the organization of research activities and events at the ILLC, such as workshops and colloquia;
• Make a small contribution to the ILLC’s educational mission, by taking part in teaching and student supervision activities in areas related to your expertise.

Your experience and profile

• A PhD degree in AI (e.g., machine learning, natural language processing or computer vision);
• A strong scientific track record, documented by publications at first-tier conferences and journals (e.g., NeurIPS, ACL, ICLR, EMNLP, NAACL or COLM);
• Have excellent programming skills;
• Have strong mathematical skills (e.g., probability theory, statistics, calculus, and linear algebra);
• Have strong communication, presentation and writing skills;
• Enjoy working in a multidisciplinary research environment;
• Are highly motivated to conduct cutting-edge research;
• Have an excellent command of English.

We offer a temporary employment contract for 38 hours per week for a period of 36 months with a probationary period of two months. The preferred starting date is 1 September 2026, but there is some flexibility. 

The gross monthly salary, based on 38 hours per week and dependent on relevant experience, ranges between € 3,546 to € 5,538 (scale 10).
This does not include 8% holiday allowance and 8,3% year-end allowance. The UFO profile Researcher is applicable. A favourable tax agreement, the ‘30% ruling’, may apply to non-Dutch applicants.
The Collective Labour Agreement of Universities of the Netherlands is applicable.

Curious about our extensive secondary benefits package? You can read more about it here.