🔘 Open Research Positions: Shortcut Learning and Spurious Correlation
We are looking for motivated students to join our research projects.


🔍 Project Description
Shortcut learning occurs when models rely on spurious or overly simple patterns instead of learning the intended underlying task. Our research aims to understand why and how shortcuts emerge, and how they can be identified, analyzed, and mitigated.
We offer three research assistant positions aligned with the following directions, co-advised by Dr. Rohban and Dr. Soleymani:

🔹 1. Understanding the Implicit Effects of Inductive Biases on Shortcut Learning

This project investigates how training-related inductive biases, such as batch size, learning rate, and loss function, influence the emergence of shortcut learning and group robustness.

[1] The Silent Helper: How Implicit Regularization Enhances Group Robustness (HiLD Workshop ICLR 2025)
[2] On the Role of Implicit Regularization of Stochastic Gradient Descent in Group Robustness (ICLR 2026)

🔗 Apply here: Google Form



🔹 2. Understanding Shortcut Learning Through the Lens of Task Arithmetic

It has been observed that shortcut features are often learned early during training. By analyzing the trajectory of weight evolution, we aim to identify shortcut task directions in parameter space and leverage this understanding to mitigate shortcut reliance.

[3] Editing Models with Task Arithmetic (ICLR 2023)

🔗 Apply here: Google Form



🔹 3. Investigating Shortcut Learning in Large-Scale Models

Shortcut-based generalization failures were first studied in linear models and simple settings. In this project, we aim to understand how these biases propagate to large-scale models, including language models, and explore strategies to mitigate them.

[4] Do LLMs Overcome Shortcut Learning? An Evaluation of Shortcut Challenges in Large Language Models (EMNLP 2024)
[5] Small Batch Size Training for Language Models: When Vanilla SGD Works, and Why Gradient Accumulation Is Wasteful (NeurIPS 2025)

🔗 Apply here: Google Form



📌 Important Notes:
Please carefully read the Internship Ethics and Guidelines before submitting your application.
Submitting the application form does not guarantee acceptance.
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted via email by March 15.