Fully Funded PhD & Postdoc Position in Knowledge-Centric AI for Biomedical Applications | University of Marburg, Germany (2026)

Overview

The University of Marburg, Germany, is inviting applications for a fully funded Doctoral Researcher (PhD) position in the Artificial Intelligence – Deep Decision Support Systems research group led by Prof. Dr. Martin Becker. This exciting opportunity is ideal for candidates interested in foundation models, graph neural networks, geometric deep learning, explainable AI, and biomedical machine learning.

The successful candidate will contribute to cutting-edge AI research addressing real-world biomedical challenges, including single-cell biology, immune system modeling, Alzheimer’s disease, pregnancy, cancer, and multi-omics data analysis.

Position Summary

Research Areas

The selected PhD researcher will work on developing next-generation AI methods for complex biomedical applications, including:

• Foundation Models
• Knowledge-Centric Artificial Intelligence
• Graph Neural Networks (GNN)
• Geometric Deep Learning
• Explainable AI (XAI)
• Pattern Mining
• Single-cell Foundation Models
• Multi-omics Data Integration
• Spatial Biology
• Sequential Data Mining
• Biomedical Machine Learning

Applications focus on:

• Cancer
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Pregnancy Research
• Immune System Modeling
• Neurodegenerative Diseases
• Behavioral Science

Research Environment

The laboratory offers an internationally connected research environment with collaborations involving leading institutions such as:

• Stanford University (USA)
• University of California San Diego (USA)
• McGill University (Canada)
• Lund University (Sweden)
• UKE Hamburg (Germany)
• Hessian.AI
• TU Darmstadt

Researchers will also have access to:

• • Large-scale AI compute clusters
  • Modern biomedical datasets
  • International collaborations
  • Open-source software development
  • High-impact publication opportunities

Responsibilities

The successful applicant will:

• Develop novel AI methodologies for biomedical research.
• Design foundation models and graph/geometric deep learning approaches.
• Collaborate with AI scientists and biomedical researchers worldwide.
• Publish research in top international journals and conferences.
• Present findings at international scientific meetings.
• Contribute to open-source software development.
• Assist in teaching activities and supervise junior students.

The position provides sufficient research time to complete a doctoral degree under the German Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act (WissZeitVG).