The groups of Vera Demberg https://www.uni-saarland.de/lehrstuhl/demberg.htmland Michael Hahn https://lacoco-lab.github.io/invite applications for two PhD positions at Saarland University, affiliated with the Konrad Zuse School of Excellence in Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELIZA).
### Topics
Position in Vera Demberg's group:
- computational models of pragmatics and/or theory of mind, with a focus on inferring the intent of the conversational partner during interaction
- experimental studies and computational models on how individual differences in human cognition affect human language processing
Position in Michael Hahn's group:
- abilities & limitations of transformers and other LLM architectures,
- LLM interpretability,
- foundations of LLM reasoning,
- foundations of AI safety.
### Key Information
The PhD positions are part of Saarland University research groups of the Konrad Zuse School of Excellence in Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELIZA) and will be located in Saarbrücken. Please see the ELIZA PhD Program Requirements and Arrangements for ELIZA-funded PhD students: https://eliza.school/opportunities/eliza-phd-program-fully-funded-positions
The positions are intended to begin at the earliest possible date (start date is negotiable in both directions, i.e., an earlier start as soon as August 2026 or a later start are possible).
Application deadline: June 18, 2026
### How to apply
Please find further information and application details here:
Position in Vera Demberg's group: https://www.uni-saarland.de/fileadmin/upload/verwaltung/stellen/Wissenschaft...
Position in Michael Hahn's group: https://www.uni-saarland.de/fileadmin/upload/verwaltung/stellen/Wissenschaft...
### About ELIZA and the Research Environment
ELIZA is a graduate school in Artificial Intelligence funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Research and academic training within ELIZA focus on four key areas: (1) the foundations of Machine Learning (ML) — including ML-driven fields such as Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing (NLP), or Robot Learning —, (2) machine learning systems, (3) applications in autonomous systems, and (4) transdisciplinary applications of ML in other scientific domains, ranging from the life sciences to physics. Saarland University is one of the leading centers for computational linguistics and computer science in Europe and offers a dynamic and stimulating research environment. It is renowned for its interdisciplinary research in language, translation, computation and cognition. The groups are affiliated with the Department of Computer Science and with the Department of Language Science and Technology. The Department of Language Science and Technology comprises about 100 research staff in ten research groups in the fields of computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, speech processing, and corpus linguistics. Both departments are part of the Saarland Informatics Campus, which brings together 800 researchers and 2,000
students from 81 countries. We collaborate closely with the university's Department of Computer Science, the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). Our researchers and students come from all over the world, and our primary working language is English.
If you have further questions, please email Vera Demberg demberg@lst.uni-saarland.de or Michael Hahn mhahn@lst.uni-saarland.de.