PhD candidate in validation methods for generative AI and Large Language Models in healthcare

Generative AI models, such as large language models (LLMs), have advanced remarkably fast and are anticipated to become a transformative force in healthcare. Researchers have identified several promising applications for generative AI in healthcare, such as automatically generating clinical letters and using chatbots to answer patient or citizen health-inquiries. Rigorous validation of these LLMs is crucial to ensure their safe and effective integration into healthcare practice, as incomplete outputs or unchecked hallucinations from LLMs could negatively impact patient and citizen care. Developing reliable evaluation methods to determine when an LLM application meets the necessary quality standards for practical use in the healthcare domain, remains an ongoing challenge. This is due to the generative nature of these models and the wide array of potential new applications.

You will be working interdisciplinary between the fields of epidemiology, data science, and AI, including natural language processing. Your focus will be on developing evaluation measures and frameworks for different generative AI/LLM applications in healthcare settings such as hospital care, primary care, and preventive health. You will investigate existing methodologies and develop new ones, considering aspects like transparency, explainability, robustness, and fairness of generative AI/LLMs. Additionally, you will assess the resource efficiency and reliability of the evaluation methods, including both human and automatic evaluations.

You will become a member of the enthusiastic and ambitious Epidemiology Methods team at the UMC Utrecht, where you will attend weekly meetings, provide presentations of your research both during these meetings and (international) conferences, and contribute to data science and clinical education.

The maximum salary for this position (36 - 36 hours) is € 3.824,00 gross per month based on full-time employment.

In addition, we offer an annual benefit of 8.3%, holiday allowance, travel expenses and career opportunities. The terms of employment are in accordance with the Cao University Medical Centers (UMC).

Department of Epidemiology and Health Economics
In this position, you will work and be supervised in the Department of Epidemiology and Health Economics as part of Methods of Epidemiological Research program, in the Julius Center at the UMC Utrecht, in close collaboration with the UMCU AI labs. You will be part of an energetic, enthusiastic team of more than 35 colleagues from very different backgrounds. The Julius Center has an extensive national and international network.