Working Student Machine Learning for Personalized Pain Assessment (m/w/d)

Join us on our mission to make education accessible for all.

Strengthen our research team in part-time (8–10 hrs./week) as a Student Research Assistant (m/f/d) for the IU Incubator Project “TAPAS – Tailored Automated Pain Assessment Systems” — fully remote within Germany or

or at one of our office locations. The project runs from 01.04.2026 to 31.05.2027.

The position supports cutting-edge research in machine learning for medical AI, with a focus on personalized pain recognition. As part of the IU Incubator Project TAPAS – Tailored Automated Pain Assessment Systems, you will contribute to developing novel AI approaches based on meta-learning and few-shot learning, enabling models to adapt to individual patients using only minimal data.

• Implementing and optimizing machine learning models, including meta-learning, few-shot learning, and multimodal approaches

• Running, documenting, and evaluating experiments

• Designing and maintaining reproducible ML pipelines

• Conducting literature research and synthesizing scientific papers

• Supporting general project management tasks

• Preparing research publications and scientific materials

Depending on your contribution, there is a strong opportunity for co-authorship on scientific publications.

• Enrolled at a university (HAW or Universität) — students in Bachelor’s or Master’s programs are welcome

• Strong programming skills in Python as well as experience with PyTorch and/or TensorFlow

• Familiarity with machine learning experimentation workflows

• Confident English skills, especially for reading and writing scientific papers

• Independent, reliable, and well-structured working style

• Ideally, initial experience with meta-learning, few-shot learning, or medical machine learning, plus a GitHub, Kaggle, or similar portfolio showcasing previous ML projects

• Be you at IU: We support and empower you to achieve your personal and professional goals. After all, your happiness significantly contributes to a positive and productive environment.

• Work flexibly: It’s your job! We trust you and give you the greatest possible freedom to organise yourself. This allows you to integrate your studies perfectly into your everyday life.

• Take your knowledge to a new level: Where else, if not with us? Benefit from free further trainings and language courses. With us, there is always something new to learn.

• Make your journey sustainable: With a DeutschlandTicket subsidized to less than 9 euros, enjoy the freedom of mobility for both work and personal activities, while also making an eco-friendly choice.

• Feel the difference: Be part of our Culture of Everyone. A corporate culture in which you can be yourself and which promotes diversity, embraces individuality, and values teamwork and growth. We celebrate our success and see mistakes as learning opportunities. Together as a team.

• 33 days to rest: Taking breaks is important! In addition to 30 flexible vacation days per year, we also give you an extra day off on your birthday, as well as days off on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

IU International University of Applied Science (IU) is Germany’s largest university of applied science – and we are not just an excellent choice for studying, but also an outstanding Great Place to Work®! As an Edutech company, we rely on state-of-the-art technology and data-driven approaches. That’s why AI-driven voice assistants and other GPT systems have long become part of our daily work routine, helping us to focus on exciting projects. Here at IU over 4,000 employees are dedicated to making a difference.

Sounds like the perfect job for you? Then apply now! Simple, fast and even without a cover letter. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Prof. Dr. Heinke Hihn at heinke.hihn@iu.org.

*Please note that, for data protection reasons, we are not allowed to process email applications.

Actions speak louder than words: We cherish our „Culture of Everyone“ and would like to take this opportunity to empathize that we do not tolerate discrimination towards any race, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation or disability. We welcome you as you are and look forward to nurturing our diverse community at the IU!