PhD student

PhD student position in the Artificial Intelligence and Medical Informatics (AIM) group at Akershus University Hospital – Multi-modal AI for breast cancer diagnostics.

We are looking for a PhD student to join AIM at Ahus, and contribute to deep learning research for breast cancer diagnostics. At AIM, you will be part of an interdisciplinary research team working with real-world medical data from Norway’s largest university hospital by service population.

About the project
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women. Artificial intelligence has the potential to significantly improve breast cancer diagnostics and care. However, despite promising research, very few AI models are currently in clinical use. Those that are often have limited real-world impact on diagnostic precision, patient care, or workload reduction.

At AIM, we have developed a research infrastructure designed for AI research and development, with access to pragmatically collected, real, healthcare data. In addition to building models, the infrastructure is capable of streaming data in real-time, allowing for prospective validations and clinical trials, ensuring that our solutions lead to tangible improvements in actual healthcare setting.

In this project you will be tasked with developing multi-modal deep learning models for BC-care, particularly tackling challenges with real-life medical data. Some topics that will be explored are, optimal strategies for training highly multimodal models, new ways of representing high dimensional and noisy end points, and handling variable data availability.

The PhD position is fully funded and part of a larger initiative on AI in breast cancer care. You will be supervised by Dr. Arian Ranjbar and Prof. Jürgen Geisler at Akershus University Hospital and University of Oslo. You will also join a vibrant inter-disciplinary research team composed of data scientists, IT engineers and medical professionals.

About AIM and MTE at Ahus
Akershus University Hospital is a tertiary hospital serving a population of over 600,000 – more than 10% of Norway’s total population. In addition to providing patient care, Ahus main responsibilities are research and education. The department of Medical Technology and E-health (MTE) (in the division for Diagnostics and Technology (DDT)) oversees all medical technology and IT-systems in the hospital.
As a research institute, Ahus is part of the University of Oslo, with Campus Ahus mirroring the hospital’s organizational structure. The Artificial Intelligence and Medical Informatics (AIM) research group is the academic counterpart of MTE, focusing on deep learning for medical applications and broader topics in medical informatics.

AIM is a young but rapidly growing research group. Currently, our team includes three PhD students with a data science-related background and three affiliated PhD students with medical background, alongside experienced researchers and senior consultants/specialists.

Main responsibilities

• Conducting research on deep learning for breast cancer diagnostics, including literature reviews, concept and dataset development (such as model architectures and training strategies), model implementations (primarily in Python), running training/test of models, and communicate findings in the form of academic publications and presentations.
• Collaborate with the team on the shared code base for data infrastructure, and participate in side projects such as machine learning challenges or PoCs.

Qualifications

We are looking for a highly motivated person, well organized and dynamic with creative thinking and a particular interest for machine learning.

To qualify for the position you need:

• A strong background in mathematics or machine learning, and good programming skills (Python, SQL).
• A master’s degree in mathematics or machine learning related discipline, e.g. engineering physics, engineering mathematics, electrical engineering, software engineering, computer science, etc.
• Knowledge and experience with machine learning is an asset, along with familiarity in utilizing standard software engineering tools and cloud-based platforms.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English. While not necessary, it is advantageous to know a Scandinavian language when working with the hospital databases.
• Ability to be inventive and to present novel ideas, data analyses and interpretation.

While not a requirement, it is a bonus if you have:

• Experience with current state of the art deep learning architectures and methodologies, particularly transformers, CLIP, UMAP and graph representations.
• Experience with mathematical statistics, particularly survival regression.
• Experience with either PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Previous contributions to machine learning projects.
• Knowledge about the healthcare industry.

All applications must include:

• A presentation letter describing your motivation for applying for the project and a PhD position
• A full CV (summarizing education, positions, academic work, scientific publications and other relevant activity)
• Transcripts and diplomas for bachelor's and master's degrees. (If you have not completed the master's degree, you must submit a confirmation that the master's thesis has been submitted).
• Copy of/link to master thesis and other scientific work you want us to consider
• Contact details of 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and phone number)
• Only applications thorugh Webcruiter will be considered

Personal skills

• We put strong emphasis on teamwork, as a successful data science project thrive on interdisciplinary interactions, and seek individuals who demonstrate personal suitability for effective collaborations.
• High intrinsic motivation and scientific curiosity.
• Proactive, flexible, and problem-solving attitude.

We offer:

• A full-time contract for three years with possibility for extension.
• Start date upon agreement, but preferably summer or early autumn 2025.
• An exciting and stimulating academic environment.
• Salary according as a PhD Research fellow in line with Ahus regulations.
• Attractive welfare benefits and a generous pension agreement, in addition to Oslo’s family-friendly environment with its rich opportunities for culture and outdoor activities.
• As an employee you are eligible to rent employee accommodation (apartment or townhouse) from Ahus Boligselskap.

Place of work

• The department is currently located at Lørenskog, Akershus University hospital.
• Excellent work-life balance and social goods