Postdoc in AI and Digital Art History

Mission

As part of a SNSF project, the candidate will develop an infrastructure for analysing large collections of Tarot decks and related textual and visual corpora. The successful applicant will collaborate with a PhD student working on this topic as well as with the rest of the lab’s research team. The objective is to build a robust and reusable infrastructure for large‑scale analysis of small visual motifs, which will serve as the backbone of the present project and can be generalised to other similar research endeavours.

• Creation and maintenance of large multimodal databases of documents (tarot cards, books, paintings, etc.)
• Development of the maintenance of the analysis and processing pipeline
• Consolidation, validation, and documentation of existing data, pipeline components, and code modules.

• Experience:
  
  1‑3 years as a machine learning engineer or PhD in related areas
• Education:
  
  MSc or PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience in machine learning.
• Technical skills:
  • Solid expertise in machine learning, with practical experience in deep learning architectures (transformers, language models).
  • Proficiency in Python, Unix‑based systems, databases (SQL/No
    
    SQL), cloud storage (S3) and computing (Kubernetes, Run:
    
    AI), and scripting/automation.
  • Familiarity with collaborative development and code/model management platforms (Git Hub, Hugging Face, and related tools).
• Mindset:
  • Curious, creative, rigorous, and attentive to detail; motivated by scientific research and cultural heritage applications, with a proactive and problem‑solving attitude.
  • Strong sense of teamwork, communication, accountability, and production readiness.
  • Very good command of written and spoken English. French is an asset.
• Desirable:
  • Prior experience in an academic or research context.
  • Experience with historical or digitised documents and interdisciplinary collaboration.
  • Experience with image processing alongside text and language data is a plus.
  • Interest in student supervision and academic publication.

EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, is one of Europe’s most dynamic and international science and technology institutions. With over 12,000 students and 4,000 researchers from 120 countries, EPFL offers an exceptional research and working environment on the shores of Lake Geneva.
The Digital Humanities Laboratory was founded by Professor Frédéric Kaplan in 2012. The lab develops new computational approaches to manage large digital cultural objects (such as large corpora of texts, images, and complex documents), and to execute high‑resolution digitisation of artifacts, buildings, and cities. It also aims to develop new understandings of digital cultures, such as visual languages, video culture, and linguistic mediations.

• Contract
  
  Start Date:
  
  01.02.2026
• Activity Rate Min: 50 %
• Activity Rate Max: 50 %
• Contract Type:
  Fixed term contract
• Duration: 1 year (extendable to 2 years)

• Letter of motivation
• CV
• Contact information

• Internship

• Full‑time

• Research, Analyst, and Information Technology

• Higher Education