Master’s Thesis

Swiss AI initiative

Ref. 2025_029

We invite Master’s students to join a research collaboration between IBM Research and the Swiss AI Institute to pursue a thesis at the intersection of AI and Chemistry. As part of this thesis, you will contribute to the development of a Multimodal Reasoning LLM for Chemistry. This project is conducted in collaboration with the SwissAI Institute, Switzerland’s national centre for AI research. You will benefit from direct access to SwissAI’s computational resources and research network.

What you will

• Train LLMs tailored for chemistry. You’ll gain hands-on experience across the full post-training pipeline, from data curation and supervised fine-tuning to reinforcement learning.
• Run evaluation of the models, analyzing behavior across a variety of tasks both in Chemistry and general reasoning benchmarks, document the results for internal reports, your Master’s thesis (where relevant), and (where appropriate) publications.
• Contribute high-quality, reproducible code
  

Required Qualifications

• Enrollment in a Master’s program (Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, or a related field)
• Practical experience with LLMs and Machine learning using PyTorch, HuggingFace, or similar frameworks
• Strong foundation in AI/ML and model training
• Strong Python skills
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Background in Chemistry
• Familiarity with experiment orchestration (job queues, trackers), containers, and CI.
• Scientific writing experience
  

Location, Timing, and Format

• Location: IBM Research Europe - Zurich, Switzerland
• Duration: Typically, 5-6 months (Master’s thesis)
  

Diversity

IBM is committed to diversity at the workplace. With us you will find an open, multicultural environment. Excellent flexible working arrangements enable all genders to strike the desired balance between their professional development and their personal lives.

How to apply

Please submit your CV, including contact information for two or three references. We encourage candidates to also share a 3-minute video, in which they introduce themselves, as well as highlight their motivation and expertise. The video is not mandatory.

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