** Job openings: PhD studentships on meaning variation in NLP **
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
The Natural Language Processing (NLP) group in the Computing and
Information Sciences department of Utrecht University (UU) is looking
for young researchers who want to jump-start their career in AI / NLP by
taking up a PhD position.
Two four-year positions are available now. They are part of the AiNed
project “Dealing with Meaning Variation in NLP”, which will be led by
Prof. Massimo Poesio. Vacancies for 4 further PhD positions on this
project will become available over the coming 1-2 years. The overall aim
of the project is to allow NLP models to make better sense of variations
in the ways that different speakers and readers interpret language. The
plan is for each of the 6 PhD projects to be supervised by one
researcher from the NLP group and one from UU's Institute for Language
Sciences.
PhD PROJECT 1: Formal semantics for vagueness in interpretation
This project is concerned with vagueness, a pervasive phenomenon in
which the meanings of words have imprecisely defined boundaries, which
are applied differently in different contexts and by different people
(for example when the air temperature is described as "warm"). This PhD
project will study mathematical and computational models of uncertainty
and vagueness. In recent years, the theoretical literature in this area
has shifted away from 2-valued towards multi-valued models, but these
models have rarely been tested with real data. This PhD project will use
existing “big” datasets (which are available in the weather domain, for
example) to find out which models predict and explain the data best.
The successful candidate will hold a Master’s degree in an area
relevant to this project; this could be Artificial Intelligence,
Computational Cognitive Science, Computing Science, or Linguistics. A
good mastery of NLP and Excellent English communication skills (oral and
written) is essential. We would also like you to take a strong interest
in multi-valued and other models of natural language meaning, and in
machine learning.
PhD PROJECT 2: Learning under disagreements between annotators
In NLP, human annotators are frequently needed to tell researchers what
a given expression “means”, by assigning the expression a label. When
human judges disagree about a label (e.g., whether an utterance is
offensive or not), it is important that these disagreements be taken
into account, as opposed to simply aggregating the values e.g., using
reconciliation or majority voting. Such disagreements are now generally
recognized to provide information rather than being noise.
This PhD project will investigate whether the differences between
various sources of disagreement (e.g., noise, ambiguity, and subjective
bias) can be detected using statistical models (e.g. cross-entropy,
Kullback-Leibler divergence). Last but not least, it will investigate to
what extent variations in one person’s verbal behaviour can be
understood mathematically in the same way as variations between
different speakers. The proposed research would ideally be carried out
by someone well versed in information theory and the design and analysis
of experiments with human participants.
The successful candidate will hold a Master’s degree in an area
relevant to this project; this area could be Artificial Intelligence,
Computational Cognitive Science, Computing Science, Linguistics, or
Statistics. A good mastery of statistics and deep learning is essential;
experience with NLP would be beneficial. A good mastery of NLP and
Excellent English communication skills (oral and written) is essential.
You take a strong interest in at least two of the three following
areas: (1) machine learning, (2) natural language, and (3) experimental
psychology.
Further information about these vacancies can be found at
PhD position in Natural Language Processing: statistical models of
disagreement between annotators (0.8 – 1.0 FTE) - Working at Utrecht
University - Utrecht University (uu.nl)
<https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/working-at-utrecht-university/jobs/phd-position-in-natural-language-processing-statistical-models-of-disagreement-between-annotators-08>
PhD position in Natural Language Processing: verbal expression of
quantities (0.8 - 1.0 FTE) - Working at Utrecht University - Utrecht
University (uu.nl)
<https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/working-at-utrecht-university/jobs/phd-position-in-natural-language-processing-verbal-expression-of-quantities-08-10-fte>
Deadline for application is 29 May 2023. We’re looking for someone to
start as soon as possible after the recruitment process is concluded but
we understand that it will normally take a few months before the
candidate will be ready to start.
Applications should be made through the University's site (see links above).
For further information, please contact:
- Prof. Massimo Poesio (m.poesio AT uu.nl).
- Prof. Kees Van Deemter (c.j.vandeemter AT uu.nl).
_______________________________________________
Corpora mailing list -- [email protected]
https://list.elra.info/mailman3/postorius/lists/corpora.list.elra.info/
To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
