Student Research Assistants in Computer Science & Law

Zurich, SwitzerlandOn-SitePart-timePosted 1w ago

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Job description

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Student Research Assistants in Computer Science & Law

10%-20%, Zurich, fixed-term

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The Center for Law & Economics at ETH Zurich conducts empirical and experimental research in law & economics and AI & law. At the Center, Professor Stefan Bechtold is looking for student research assistants with a background in computer science, data science, or related fields to support interdisciplinary research projects at the intersection of data science, artificial intelligence, law, and economics.

We are looking for students with strong programming and problem-solving skills who want to work with real-world datasets and develop computational tools for empirical research. Our current projects involve large-scale web and text analysis, as well as computer vision and visual data analysis. Applicants may have experience in one or both areas described below. You do not need to match both profiles.

Project background

Our research uses computational methods to study legal, economic, and social-science questions at scale. Many of our projects focus on innovation, competition, copyright, privacy, or regulating digital platforms & AI systems. One group of projects involves collecting and analyzing content from websites. This includes scraping structured and unstructured web content, storing and managing large datasets, applying statistical and natural-language processing methods, and developing LLM-based pipelines for empirical legal research. These projects require reliable data-collection infrastructure and reproducible workflows that can process large amounts of text and web data. A second group of projects focuses on the computational analysis of visual content. We work with large collections of images and associated metadata. These projects involve methods such as image embeddings, similarity search, clustering, computer vision, and multimodal AI. Across both areas, research assistants are encouraged not only to implement predefined tasks but also to help identify, test, and evaluate suitable computational approaches.

Job description

Depending on your background and interests, your work may focus primarily on one of two areas:

Web Data, NLP & LLM Pipelines

scraping and extracting web content and maintaining reproducible data-collection pipelines
interacting with LLM APIs (e.g., OpenAI, OpenRouter)
storing, querying, cleaning, and validating data using SQL/PostgreSQL
applying NLP, statistical methods, and LLM-based approaches to textual data
deploying and maintaining research code on Linux virtual machines

Computer Vision & Visual Data Analysis

processing and analyzing large image collections and associated metadata
using image embeddings, similarity search, clustering, and multimodal models
identifying identical, similar, or related images across large datasets
evaluating computational methods and visualizing resulting patterns

Profile

You are a registered student at a university in Zurich or nearby
For the Web Data, NLP & LLM profile, you have experience with Python, web scraping, and SQL. Experience with NLP, statistical methods, LLM pipelines, LLM APIs, and/or Docker is a plus
For the Computer Vision & Visual Data Analysis profile, you have experience with Python, computer vision, image processing, or machine learning. Experience with PyTorch, image embeddings, vision-language models, OpenCV, or vector similarity search is a plus.
Across both profiles, experience with Linux and Git is essential, and experience with web interface and data visualization development to present results in interactive, accessible formats is a plus
You are at a stage of your studies where, during the semester, you can dedicate 10 to 15 hours per week (potentially more outside of the semester)
You are interested in designing and conducting interdisciplinary research projects in collaboration with a team of legal and economics scholars
We value strong problem-solving skills, clean and reliable code, independence, and careful attention to data quality and reproducibility. Your ability to quickly understand and work with unfamiliar codebases, together with a strong willingness to learn new tools and techniques, will help you in this job. You do not need experience with every technology listed above. Knowledge of law, economics, or legal research is also not required

Workplace

We offer

We are an interdisciplinary research group at the intersection of law, economics, and data science working on large collaborative projects on regulating the digital economy. You will work closely with our team while having substantial independence in the technical implementation of your work.
This position offers exposure to real-world, large-scale research datasets, flexibility to contribute ideas on methods and implementation, and opportunities to build computational infrastructures used in academic research.
Our offices are in the city center of Zurich, our working language is English.

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We value diversity and sustainability

In line with our values, ETH Zurich encourages an inclusive culture. We promote equality of opportunity, value diversity and nurture a working and learning environment in which the rights and dignity of all our staff and students are respected. Visit our Equal Opportunities and Diversity website to find out how we ensure a fair and open environment that allows everyone to grow and flourish. Sustainability is a core value for us – we are consistently working towards a climate-neutral future.

Curious? So are we.

We look forward to receiving your online application until October 4, 2026, with the following documents:

a cover letter (2 pages max; please describe your relevant background and motivation in the letter),
your CV, and
your university transcript with exam grades.

Further information about our research group can be found at the Intellectual Property Group (Bechtold) and the website. Questions regarding the position should be directed to Prof. Stefan Bechtold ([email protected]) (no applications).

Please note that we exclusively accept applications submitted through our online application portal. Applications via email or postal services will not be considered.

We would like to point out that the pre-selection is carried out by the responsible recruiters and not by artificial intelligence.

About ETH Zürich

ETH Zurich is one of the world’s leading universities specialising in science and technology. We are renowned for our excellent education, cutting-edge fundamental research and direct transfer of new knowledge into society. Over 30,000 people from more than 120 countries find our university to be a place that promotes independent thinking and an environment that inspires excellence. Located in the heart of Europe, yet forging connections all over the world, we work together to develop solutions for the global challenges of today and tomorrow.

Curious? So are we.

We look forward to receiving your online application until October 4, 2026, with the following documents:

a cover letter (2 pages max; please describe your relevant background and motivation in the letter),
your CV, and
your university transcript with exam grades.

Please note that we exclusively accept applications submitted through our online application portal. Applications via email or postal services will not be considered.

We would like to point out that the pre-selection is carried out by the responsible recruiters and not by artificial intelligence.

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ETH Zurich

ETH Zurich is a public research university in the city of Zurich, Switzerland.

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