PhD student and postdoctoral positions in Automated Reasoning,
Karlsruhe, Germany

The Knowledge Management research group at the Institute for Applied
Informatics and Formal Description Methods (AIFB,
http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/WBS) at the University of Karlsruhe (TH),
Germany, is an interdisciplinary team of computer scientists,
mathematicians, and industrial engineers and one of the world leading
institutes in the area of the Semantic Web.

We are offering a

research position (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter BAT IIa)

for a PhD student or a postdoctoral researcher, on initial contract for
two years, with the possibility of extending the contract.

We are looking for a highly skilled person to be responsible for further
development of the reasoner KAON2 (http://kaon2.semanticweb.org/). KAON2
is a reasoner for description logics which underlie the Ontology Web
Language (OWL) - the language for building ontologies in the Semantic
Web. It is currently one of the fastest reasoners available, which we
achieved by developing several innovative and efficient reasoning
algorithms that reduce inferences in description logics to query
answeringon  deductive databases via a resolution-based transformation.
KAON2 is used in several large projects funded by the European Union, as
well as for commercial purposes in cooperation with the company
Ontoprise GmbH.

Possible extensions of KAON2 include, but are not limited to, developing
and implementing reasoning algorithms for advanced knowledge
representation formalisms such as nonmonotonic or paraconsistent logics,
extending the calculus for reasoning with concrete domains, extending
the transformation algorithm to handle nominals, and improving
performance by means of databases and heuristics.

This position requires solid programming experience, if possible in an
industrial setting, and also solid knowledge of mathematical logic and
automated deduction.

We are looking forward to receiving applications from candidates who
have recently completed a Masters degree in computer science or a
related field and want to pursue a PhD project, or who have recently
completed a PhD degree and are interested in research and project work
in an internationally acclaimed research group.
related field and want to pursue a PhD project, or who have recently
completed a PhD degree and are interested in research and project work
in an internationally acclaimed research group.


Application deadline is January 12th, 2006. Earlier applications are
very welcome and will be dealt with as they arrive. Late applications
may be considered.


Please send your application by ground mail to

Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer
Universität Karlsruhe (TH)
Institut AIFB
76128 Karlsruhe
Germany

If you have questions, please contact

Dr. Pascal Hitzler
+49 (721) 608-4751
hitzler at aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de