PhD Research Fellow in Natural Language Processing
About the position
Position as PhD Research Fellow in Natural Language Processing available at the Language Technology Group (LTG) at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo.
No one can be appointed for more than one PhD Research Fellowship period at the University of Oslo. Starting date no later than October 1, 2024.
The fellowship period is three (3) years.
A fourth year may be considered with a workload of 25 % that may consist of teaching, supervision duties, and/or research assistance. This is dependent upon the qualification of the applicant and the current needs of the department.
Knowledge development in a changing world – Science and technology towards 2030.
The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Job description
The PhD project will focus on variety-aware machine translation in a broad sense. While there have been impressive improvements in the field of machine translation in recent years, most systems define their source and target lan-guages at a relatively coarse level (e.g. “English”, “Norwegian”) and do not take into account different types of variation that exist within these language denominations: national varieties (e.g. American vs. British English), writing forms (e.g. Bokmål vs. Nynorsk), dialects, historical varieties, learner language, simple/plain language, as well as different genres and styles.
Applicants have considerable freedom to define their research project within the area of variety-aware machine translation. Depending on the chosen variation type, different setups can be explored (variation on the source side, variation on the target side, or translation between two varieties of the same language). The research project should not only produce variety-aware machine translation models, but also contribute to the evaluation of such models. The application should contain a research proposal that specifies the research direction that the applicant wishes to take.
The LTG is an international and diverse group with a heavily machine-learning oriented research profile combined with an interest for linguistic analysis and knowledge. The LTG currently participates in the EU-funded HPLT project (https://hplt-project.org/), one of whose goals is to provide large datasets for training language and translation models. The LTG is also an active member of Integreat (https://www.integreat.no/), the Norwegian center of excellence for knowledge-driven machine learning. The group has access to excellent high-performance computing infrastructure.
Qualification requirements
The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences has a strategic ambition to be among Europe’s leading communities for research, education and innovation. Candidates for these fellowships will be selected in accordance with this, and expected to be in the upper segment of their class with respect to academic credentials.
Required qualifications:
- Master’s degree in Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, Computer Science with a specialization in NLP or ML, or equivalent (see University-specific requirements below)
- Foreign completed degree (M.Sc.-level) corresponding to a minimum of four years in the Norwegian educational system
- Documented previous experience with neural approaches to NLP
- Fluent oral and written communication skills in English
Desired qualifications:
- Competences in variational linguistics and/or translation technology
- Prior experience with training and/or evaluating neural language and transla-tion models
Candidates without a master’s degree have until 30 June, 2024 to complete the final exam.
Grade requirements:
The norm is as follows:
- The average grade point for courses included in the Bachelor’s degree must be C or better in the Norwegian educational system
- The average grade point for courses included in the Master’s degree must be B or better in the Norwegian educational system
- The Master’s thesis must have the grade B or better in the Norwegian educa-tional system
- English requirements for applicants from outside of EU/ EEA countries and exemptions from the requirements:
https://www.mn.uio.no/english/research/phd/regulations/regulations.html#toc8
The purpose of the fellowship is research training leading to the successful completion of a PhD degree.
The fellowship requires admission to the PhD programme at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. The application to the PhD programme must be submitted to the department no later than two months after taking up the position.
For more information see:
http://www.uio.no/english/research/phd/
http://www.mn.uio.no/english/research/phd/
Personal skills
- We seek highly motivated, open-minded, and scientifically curious candidates
- Candidates should be able to work independently, as well as in a team (with the supervisor or with fellow students)
- Candidates should have strong written and verbal communication skills
We offer
- Salary NOK 532 200 – 575 400 per year depending on qualifications and seniority as PhD Research Fellow (position code 1017)
- Attractive welfare benefits and a generous pension agreement
- Vibrant international academic environment
- Career development programmes
- Oslo’s family-friendly surroundings with their rich opportunities for culture and outdoor activities
How to apply
The application must include:
- Cover letter – statement of motivation and research interests
- Research proposal – specification of the candidate’s research project within the area of variety-aware machine translation (1-2 pages)
- CV (summarizing education, positions and academic work)
- Copies of the original Bachelor and Master’s degree diploma, transcripts of records
- Documentation of English proficiency (if applicable)
- A piece of academic work (Bachelor’s thesis, Master’s thesis or part of it, or a publication) that the applicant wishes to be considered by the evaluation committee
- Names and contact details of 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and telephone number)
The application with attachments must be delivered in our electronic recruiting system (please follow the link “Apply for this job”). Foreign applicants are advised to attach an explanation of their University’s grading system. Please note that all documents should be in English or a Scandinavian language.
Interviews with the best qualified candidates will be arranged.
Formal regulations
Please see the guidelines and regulations for appointments to Research Fellowships at the University of Oslo.
According to the Norwegian Freedom and Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure.
UiO has an agreement for all employees, aiming to secure rights to research results a.o.
Inclusion and diversity are a strength. The University of Oslo has a personnel policy objective of achieving a balanced gender composition. Furthermore, we want employees with diverse professional expertise, life experience and perspectives.
If there are qualified applicants with disabilities, employment gaps or immigrant background, we will invite at least one applicant from each of these categories to an interview.
Contact information
For further information please contact Associate Professor Yves Scherrer, phone: +47 228 40120, e-mail: yves.scherrer@ifi.uio.no
For questions regarding Jobbnorge, please contact HR Adviser Therese Ringvold, e-mail: therese.ringvold@mn.uio.no
About the University of Oslo
The University of Oslo is Norway’s oldest and highest rated institution of research and education with 28 000 students and 7000 employees. Its broad range of academic disciplines and internationally esteemed research communities make UiO an important contributor to society.
The Department of Informatics (IFI) is one of nine departments belonging to the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. IFI is Norway’s largest university department for general education and research in Computer Science and related topics.
The Department has more than 1800 students on bachelor level, 600 master students, and over 240 PhDs and postdocs. The overall staff of the Department is close to 370 employees, about 280 of these in full time positions. The full time tenured academic staff is 75, mostly Full/Associate Professors.
Deadline: 2024-02-29 at 23:59
Unit: Engineering/it
Read the job description at the university homepage or apply.