Research in developing a knowledge-aware and event-centric framework for natural language understanding

King’s College London’s Department of Informatics is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Associate to join the UKRI-funded Turing AI Fellowship project, 'Event-Centric Framework for Natural Language Understanding,' led by Professor Yulan He. The department is internationally recognized for its excellence in artificial intelligence, robotics, and computer vision, and fosters interdisciplinary research addressing real-world challenges through innovative machine learning, data science, and intelligent systems. The five-year Turing AI Fellowship project aims to develop a knowledge-aware, event-centric framework for natural language understanding. This involves constructing event graphs as reading progresses, learning event representations with background knowledge, deriving implicit knowledge through reasoning over event graphs, and building comprehension models with interpretability and robustness against adversarial attacks. The successful candidate will focus on developing large language model (LLM) agents to support theory of mind reasoning and cognitive reappraisal. They will join a vibrant network of Turing AI fellows and the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national AI and Data Science institute. The role offers opportunities to develop a research profile, travel for presentations and demos, and contribute to academic publications. Applicants should hold a PhD in Computer Science, NLP, AI, or a closely related field, or have submitted their thesis and be awaiting award. Essential skills include a strong research record in NLP, expertise in LLMs and agentic frameworks, and strong communication and organizational abilities. Desirable attributes include interdisciplinary collaboration, familiarity with cognitive architectures or agent-based modelling, and experience with the robustness and generalisability of LLMs. The position is full-time (35 hours per week) and offered on a fixed-term contract until 31st March 2026. Research staff at King’s benefit from at least 10 days per year for professional development. The department is committed to diversity, inclusion, and supporting career development. Candidates should submit a CV and a supporting statement addressing the essential and desirable criteria. Full details are available in the Job Description document.