PhD Studentship in Information Technology at Politecnico di Milano

In preparation for the Genome Computing research project, starting in the fall of 2012, we offer five new positions in Computer Science & Engineering within the PhD in Information Technology (http://dottorato.iinfo.polimi.it/) at the Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione (DEI) (http://www.dei.polimi.it/index.php?&idlang=eng) of Politecnico di Milano (http://www.polimi.it/).

The Genome Computing project focuses on big data analysis and Web technology for genomic data. It will be conducted in collaboration with IEO-IFOM (http://www.ifom-ieo-campus.it/), and will take advantage of next generation sequencing technology, which opens up to radical innovation in biological and medical research. The project aims at building a powerful data computing infrastructure at the receiving end of DNA sequencing machines, for enabling viewing, querying, analyzing, mining, and searching over a world-wide available collection of genomic data. The project goal is generating an open-source, standard, highly efficient and easily usable computational framework – the “Internet of genomes†– to support scientists in genome-related research. Genome Computing is a follow-up of Search Computing (http://www.search-computing.org/), a project funded by the European Research Council (ERC).

Selected PhDs will be part of a multidisciplinary team with students from IEO-IFOM and from the Department of Mathematics; a special instruction track, specifically designed for this team, will focus on basic biological knowledge, on big data management and Web technologies, and on interdisciplinary activities. We offer to highly motivated candidates the opportunity to develop an interdisciplinary research project, working in close collaboration with top-level scientists and researchers.

We welcome candidates who already have (or are about to obtain) a degree in Computer Science, Bioinformatics, or related fields, with a strong background in Computer Science and with knowledge of Bioinformatics. Previous experience in genomic computing would be an advantage, but is not required. PhD students will receive a fellowship of 14,400.00 net Euro/year during the three years of the PhD program. Interested students should send, by April 25, their curriculum vitae, a motivation letter and contact details of at least two persons who could provide a recommendation letter, to:

Stefano Ceri: ceri@elet.polimi.it
Marco Masseroli: masseroli@elet.polimi.it

Candidates may be invited to a colloquium, e.g. using Skype. All selected candidates to the special track will have in any case to apply to the PhD within the deadline of May 25, 2012, by following the procedure published at:http://www.ricerca.polimi.it/index.php?id=4562 .