Post-doctoral position in deep learning for large-scale biodiversity mapping

Download job offer in PDF format

Contract type : Fixed-term contract

Renewable contract : Yes

Level of qualifications required : PhD or equivalent

Fonction : Tempary Research Position

Level of experience : Recently graduated

About the research centre or Inria department

The Inria center at Université Côte d'Azur includes 42 research teams and 9 support services. The center’s staff (about 500 people) is made up of scientists of different nationalities, engineers, technicians and administrative staff. The teams are mainly located on the university campuses of Sophia Antipolis and Nice as well as Montpellier, in close collaboration with research and higher education laboratories and establishments (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, INRAE, INSERM ...), but also with the regional economic players.

With a presence in the fields of computational neuroscience and biology, data science and modeling, software engineering and certification, as well as collaborative robotics, the Inria Centre at Université Côte d'Azur  is a major player in terms of scientific excellence through its results and collaborations at both European and international levels.

Context

The Pl@ntNet team is looking for a post-doc with strong skills in deep learninn, Python development and, ideally, in GeoSpatial data. Pl@ntNet is a citizen observatory of plant biodiversity and a research platform at the crossroads of data science, ecology and artificial intelligence. The Pl@ntNet mobile application is used by tens of millions of users worldwide. 

You will work mainly in the Montpellier Computer Science Laboratory (LIRMM) as a starting researcher at Inria. Inria is a major player in computer science research worldwide; it is the managing organization of the Pl@ntNet consortium.
You will work in a quite unique environment at the forefront of digital technologies for biodiversity management. In particular, you will work in the context of the GUARDEN EU project aimed at mobilizing biodiversity data cubes in conjunction with other environmental data and scenarios, as the basis for models and indicators of past, current and future biodiversity.

You will interact regularly with senior researchers at Inria (Alexis Joly, Lukas Picek) and with the ecologists and engineers involved in Pl@ntNet. 

Assignment

- The main assignment will be to develop innovative AI models for species distribution modeling and apply them to the high-resolution mapping of species and habitats at continent scale. This requires to overcome the obstacles related to the multimodality and heterogeneity of the data, as well as the size of the corpus collected. It will be your job to coordinate your activities with a multi-disciplinary team dealing with these issues, as well as with the IT engineers in charge of managing and exploiting the data mobilized for production purposes (in particular in a new appliucation called GeoPl@ntNet). 

- You will be responsible for publishing the scientific results obtained in journals and presenting them at various events (conferences, etc.).
- You will be expected to attend project meetings, and help draft deliverables and publications.

 

Main activities

Main activities:

  • design, development and evaluation of multi-modal deep learning models (transformers in particular) 
  • integration of the developed models in the GeoPl@ntNet pipeline in collaboration with Pl@ntNet engineers
  • results dissemnitation (scientific publication(s), models/data sharing, conferences, etc.) 
  • participation to projects meetings, conferences, etc.

Skills

  • Technical skills and level required:
    • Very good knowledge in deep learning
    • Good knowledge in ecology
    • Experience in Python development, GitHub
    • Languages : English
  • Relational skills: Autonomy, intellectual curiosity, ability to work collaboratively and interdisciplinarily.

Benefits package

  • Subsidized meals
  • Partial reimbursement of public transport costs
  • Leave: 7 weeks of annual leave + 10 extra days off due to RTT (statutory reduction in working hours) + possibility of exceptional leave (sick children, moving home, etc.)
  • Possibility of teleworking and flexible organization of working hours
  • Professional equipment available (videoconferencing, loan of computer equipment, etc.)
  • Social, cultural and sports events and activities
  • Access to vocational training
  • Contribution to mutual insurance (subject to conditions)

Remuneration

Gross Salary: 2788 € per month