8 Multimodal AI and Multi-Agent Systems PhD Positions (2026)
Looking for multimodal AI and multi-agent systems PhD positions? Below are 8 professors who looked to be actively recruiting MSc, PhD and postdoc researchers as of July 17, 2026, covering vision-language models, multimodal foundation models, agentic AI safety and automated negotiation. Every one was surfaced with the ApexApply search and then checked by hand against their own page.
This is one in an occasional series of hand-checked position roundups, grouped by research area. Checked as of July 17, 2026.
| Professor | University | Research focus | Positions | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azade Farshad | Aalto University | Semantic scene understanding, generative models, and multimodal foundation models | PhD, Postdoc | Profile |
| Xiang Li | University of Bristol | Multimodal LLMs, computer vision, and remote sensing | PhD | Profile |
| Freda Shi | University of Waterloo | Vision-language models, spatial reasoning, and multimodal learning | PhD | Profile |
| Liyue Shen | University of Michigan | Multimodal representation learning, robust perception, and diffusion models | PhD | Profile |
| A. Sophia Koepke | Technical University of Munich | Multimodal learning from sound, vision, and text for video understanding | MSc, PhD | Profile |
| Gagandeep Singh | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Formal verification of LLMs and VLMs, and securing agentic AI | Accepting students | Profile |
| Sarit Kraus | Bar-Ilan University | Intelligent and multi-agent systems, automated negotiation, and LLM-based projects | Accepting students | Profile |
| Xuan (Tan Zhi Xuan) | National University of Singapore | Human-like cooperative agents, normative reasoning, and AI alignment | Accepting students | Profile |
How to use this list of multimodal AI and multi-agent systems positions
A name here is a starting point, not a guarantee. Recruiting status changes fast, so confirm on each professor's own page before you email: funding falls through, a slot fills, a professor goes on leave. Our guide on how to tell if a professor is actually accepting students walks through reading those signals, and how to email a professor covers the outreach itself.
Find PhD positions in your own field
This edition is multimodal AI and multi-agent systems because that is what we checked this week. Your field is almost certainly different, and that is the point. ApexApply is an AI platform that matches prospective master's, PhD, and postdoc students to more than 3 million professors and faculty members across the globe, so you can run the same search for your own interests, in any discipline, and get a ranked set of best-fit professors in a few minutes.