💎 CRISTAL Lab

Welcome to the CRISTAL Lab at CISPA! Our mission is to develop cutting-edge AI systems that can communicate effectively, reason reliably, operate safely in complex environments, and make transparent and trustworthy decisions.

We are building a collaborative, ambitious, and inclusive research group focused on pushing the boundaries of AI alignment, reasoning, safety evaluation, and interpretability. If you are passionate about building the future of trustworthy AI, explore our open positions and application guidelines below.

Research Focus

Recent advances in foundation models offer powerful capabilities alongside core challenges in safety and reliability. CRISTAL focuses on three core, interconnected pillars:

• AI Alignment: Building foundation models and agentic systems that reliably adhere to human intent, values, and preferences.
• Safety & Robustness Evaluation: Designing systematic evaluation frameworks to anticipate failure modes, stress-test systems, and benchmark safety before deployment.
• Transparent & Interpretable Decision-Making: Developing techniques to make complex AI reasoning accountable, understandable, and continuously adaptable.

Core Research Topics: • Foundation Models • AI Alignment & Evaluation • Reasoning & Decision-Making • Agentic & Multi-Agent Systems • Continual & Lifelong Learning • Interpretability & Transparency • AI Safety & Robustness

Open Positions & What We Offer

We invite applications from prospective PhD Students, Postdoctoral Researchers, and Research Interns (BSc/MSc/PhD) with strong backgrounds or interests in AI, ML, NLP, AI Safety, and related fields.

Why Join CRISTAL?

• Shape a Founding Lab: Help define the scientific trajectory and culture of a dynamic, new research group from day one.
• Mentorship & Autonomy: Direct 1-on-1 guidance paired with the freedom to lead independent research agendas and publish at top-tier AI, ML and NLP venues.
• Institutional & Compute Resources: Access to robust computational infrastructure, travel funding for conferences, and full visa support.
• Compensation & Benefits: Full-time position with competitive salary, comprehensive health insurance, paid vacation, and pension benefits.
• Diverse Environment: International, interdisciplinary group located at CISPA in Germany, operating fully in English.

Application Guidelines

Please prepare your application materials as a single PDF file (or a link to a unified folder):

1. Curriculum Vitae (CV)
2. Research Statement (2–3 pages): Detail your past research contributions, future vision, and how your interests connect to CRISTAL’s mission.
   💡 Research Statement Guide: To help applicants prepare a strong statement, we provide a CRISTAL Research Statement Guide describing how we evaluate research statements and what we look for in successful applications.
3. Representative Artifacts (Up to 3): Publications, preprints, code repositories, or technical project reports.
4. Academic Transcripts: Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD, as applicable.
5. References: Names and contact information for 3 academic or professional references (letters will be requested directly for shortlisted candidates).
6. (Optional) Responses to Research Questions of Your Choice (1–2 pages per question, highly encouraged):
   • How would you evaluate whether a modern AI system behaves reliably and in accordance with intended goals?
   • What are important or underexplored failure modes in current state-of-the-art AI systems?
   • How would you design methods to assess or improve the transparency and interpretability of AI systems?
   • What limitations do you see in current approaches to evaluating AI safety and robustness?

What We Look For

We evaluate applications holistically based on overall potential, research fit, and alignment with CRISTAL’s mission:

• PhD & Intern Applicants: Curiosity, critical thinking, technical background (projects, coursework, or early research), and growth trajectory.
• Postdoctoral Applicants: Scientific independence, strong publication track record in relevant venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, COLM), leadership potential, and alignment with the lab’s core vision.

How to Apply

Timeline & Start Dates

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis upon receipt, with flexible start dates available as early as Fall 2026:

• Postdoc & Intern Positions: Open continuously with flexible start dates year-round.
• PhD Applicants: Applications are considered on a rolling basis:
  • Fall/Winter 2026 Entry: Immediate consideration.
  • 2027 Intake: Early review begins October 15, 2026, with full priority review through December 15, 2026.