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Postdoctoral researcher in Statistical Machine Translation

Publication date
29 March 2016
Level of education
PhD
Salary indication
€2,532 to €3,996 gross per month
Closing date
15 May 2016
Hours
38 hours per week
Vacancy number
16-126

The Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) is a research institute at the University of Amsterdam, in which researchers from the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Humanities collaborate. Its central research area is the study of fundamental principles of encoding, transmission and com- prehension of information.

Research at ILLC is interdisciplinary, and aims at bringing together insights from various disciplines concerned with information and information processing, such as logic, mathematics, computer science, linguistics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, musicology and philosophy. Research is organized in three research groups: Logic and Computation (LoCo), Logic and Language (LoLa) and Language and Computation (LaCo). Check here for an overview of the research being carried out in the different groups. For the research carried out by the individual staff members of ILLC, see their personal pages via People at ILLC.

The SLPL Lab, led by Professor Khalil Sima'an, is part of the Language and Computation Programme at the ILLC. The SLPL Lab is seeking to attract a postdoctoral researcher in Statistical Machine Translation for a fixed term of two years.

Project description

The postdoc position is part of the SLPL Lab, led by Professor Khalil Sima'an. SLPL currently has 7 PhD candidates, 3 postdoctoral researchers and two research assistants working on five ongoing externally funded projects, including a Vici, H2020 QT21, ITN EXPERT, an Open Competition and an STW project. Please consult the SLPL Lab page for more detail.

The postdoctoral researcher will be expected to fulfil the following tasks:

  • conduct research in (preferably hierarchical) statistical machine translation with particular interest in word-order, morphology, semantics and other specific challenges;
  • present and publish research findings together with SLPL team members in proceedings and journals;
  • program and test the developed algorithms in prototype systems and make these usable for other team members;
  • assist in guiding PhD and MSc students working on topics in Computational Linguistics at large;
  • while this is primarily a research position, the successful candidate will be expected to also make a minor contribution to teaching.

Requirements

Prospective candidates should:

  • hold a PhD degree in statistical natural language processing or a related research area with experience in statistical machine translation;
  • have a proven track record of excellence in research, as witnessed by a strong publication list in relevant first tier conference proceedings or journals;
  • have a proven experience in and affinity with programming and empirical experimentation with text (parallel) corpora;
  • have strong passion for research, a drive to publish and the wish to learn new skills through working with or assisting in guiding PhD and MSc students as well as teaching;
  • have good communication skills in English, both oral and written.

Further information

For more information about the position please contact:

Appointment

The full-time appointment (38 hours per week) will be on a temporary basis, initially for one year with an extension for another year on positive evaluation.

Depending on experience, the gross monthly salary will range from €3,044 in the first year to €3,996 (scale 10), excl. 8% holiday allowance and 8,3% annual bonus The Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities is applicable.

Job application

Applications ( single PDF file ) should consist of:

  1. a brief letter of motivation;
  2. a detailed curriculum vitae;
  3. a list of publications;
  4. the names and contact details of three academic referees, and
  5. a link to a website with an online version of the PhD thesis and relevant publications (e.g., your professional homepage).

NB: Do not include articles or thesis in your application.

Completed applications should be submitted by 15 May 2016 to Khalil Simaan and should state your name and vacancy number 16-126 in the subject field.

No agencies please

Please note that this newsitem has been archived, and may contain outdated information or links.