Postdoctoral Fellowship in AI Safety and Mechanistic Interpretability

The Centre for Machine Learning within the Data Science and Statistics Section of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science (IMADA) at the University of Southern Denmark invites applications for postdoctoral research fellowship position(s) within the field of machine learning natural language processing and AI safety. The proposed starting date is 1 February 2026 or soon thereafter. The appointment will be made for an initial period of 12-24 months with the possibility of extension though no longer than a total of 4 years in Denmark at an internationally competitive salary.

The research will be conducted within the MIST project (Scalable Mechanistic Interpretability for Safe and Trustworthy LLM Agents) recently funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The project aims to develop new scalable methods for understanding the inner workings of large language models and developing functionally-grounded steering and control techniques.

The successful candidate will contribute to frontier research on one or more of the following topics:

• Interpretability and transparency: Developing methods to understand how language models process information and make decisions such as sparse autoencoders circuit discovery activation patching and representation engineering with a focus on compositional structure in learned representations as well as testing universality across models and languages.
• Agentic and multi-agent safety: Understanding and ensuring safe behavior in LLM agents that can plan reason and use tools as well as studying the dynamics communication patterns and safety properties of multi-agent systems
• Control and containment: Developing steering techniques and safety measures to guide model behavior including red-teaming and methods for intervention guardrails and safety certificates based on mechanistic understanding. Applications include high-risk domains such as healthcare where synthetic data generation may be leveraged for safety evaluation.

The ideal candidate has a research background in or research experience with one or more of the following topics:

• Natural language processing & language modeling
• Machine learning & representation learning
• Interpretability and analysis of models
• Alignment and language model agents
• Other backgrounds that could inform language model interpretability and control such as cognitive science neuroscience causal inference probabilistic graphical models physics/dynamical systems.

Qualifications:
The candidate is expected to hold (or be about to complete) a relevant PhD degree in Computer Science Artificial Intelligence or another field that provides a strong research background for the project.

Fluency in English and Python are required.

Research experience working with large-scale machine learning projects extensive research software development experience and intimate knowledge of machine learning frameworks (such as PyTorch and Transformers) are advantageous. Publications in top ML/NLP venues such as NeurIPS ICLR ICML ACL EMNLP are expected.

PhD candidates about to complete will also be considered and should attach a statement from their supervisors regarding their impending completion.
The successful candidate will have the opportunity to contribute to establishing a new research group on AI Safety at SDU and will participate in publishing high-quality research papers at top-tier machine learning and NLP venues such as NeurIPS ICLR ACL and EMNLP.

IMADA has the unique feature of bringing mathematicians and computer scientists together within a single department to foster theoretically well-backed high-quality data science research. IMADA is home to many ongoing externally funded research projects as well as to a rich curriculum of data science and artificial intelligence courses. The Data Science and Statistics Group is a synergy platform for the data science experts in IMADA.

Place of work: The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science is located at the main campus of the University of Southern Denmark Odense Denmark. The University of Southern Denmark was founded in 1966 and now has more than 27000 students almost 20% of whom are from abroad. It has more than 3800 employees and 115 different study programmes in the fields of the humanities social sciences natural sciences health sciences and engineering. Its main campus is located in Odense the third largest city in Denmark.

Odense provides family-friendly living conditions with the perfect combination of a historic city centre with an urban feel and yet a close proximity to beaches and recreational areas. Its location on the beautiful island of Funen is ideal with easy access by train or highway to the bigger cities of Aarhus and Copenhagen. As the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen Denmarks famous fairytale author the city is home to a vibrant and creative population that hosts numerous festivals and markets throughout the year.

For further questions about the position please contact Asst. Prof. Lukas Galke Poech at .

Applicationsalaryetc.

The successful applicant will be employedin accordance withthe agreement between the Ministry of Finance and AC (the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations). Please check links for more information onsalary(only available in Danish)andtaxation.

The application must include the following:

• A curriculum vitae including information onpreviousemployment with start and end dates
• A full list of publicationsstatingthe scientific publications on which the applicant wishes to rely
• Copy of PhD diploma ifPhddiploma has not yet been received please include statement from your supervisor

Incomplete applications and applications received after the deadline will neither be considered nor evaluated.

Shortlisting may be used as part of the assessment process and an interview may be included in the overall evaluation of the applicants qualifications.

Applications must besubmittedelectronically using the linkApplynow.Attachedfiles must be in Adobe PDF format. We strongly recommend that you readHow to apply for a position at SDUbefore you apply.

Since not all members of the appointment committee areDanish-speaking it is recommended that your application issubmittedin English.

The University wishes our staff toreflectthe diversity of society and thus welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of personal background.

Further informationfor international applicants about entering and working in Denmark can be found on the Universitys website.

The application deadline is 19 December 2025 at 11.59 PM/23.59 (CET/CEST)