The *Transducens research group *(https://transducens.dlsi.ua.es) at Universitat d'Alacant
(https://www.ua.es/) is excited to announce an opening for a *PhD position* in Alicante,
Spain.
This is a fantastic opportunity to contribute to a*research project* funded by the*Spanish
Research Agency and the European Social Fund: A way to make Europe***focusing on crucial
areas:
* *Multilingual machine translation:* Exploitation of unstructured linguistic
information to improve the translation of low-resource language pairs with
large
language models (LLMs).
* *Large language models*: Development of advance chain-of-thought prompting
techniques
to enhance the translation process with LLMs.
* *Societal impact: *Development of machine translation systems for
low-resource and
extremely low-resource language pairs with a large potential impact in their
respective linguistic communities.
You will be part of the *Transducens research group*, a dynamic research group with 25+
years of experience in low-resource machine translation and translation technologies. In
addition, you will work in a joint project with Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and the
Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
As part of you PhD work you will:
* Fine-tune and adapt existing multilingual LLMs for specific tasks.
* Acquire and prepare corpora and datasets for machine translation training
and evaluation.
* Develop novel methods for the exploitation of linguistic resources of any
kind
(dictionaries, books, etc.) to improve the performance of LLM-based machine
translation systems for low-resource languages.
* Integrate your software into existing libraries and applications.
* Release software and corpora under free/open-source licenses.
* Participate in meetings, write reports, and publish scientific papers.
* Travel to attend international conferences reputed in the field.
* Make a short research stay (3+ months) in another European research
institution.
*What we are looking for:*
* *Required Education:*
o You must meet the requirement to enroll in the PhD program in Computer
Science at
Universitat d'Alacant. This usually means having:
+ A university degree (240 ECTS; European Credit Transfer System;
equivalent to
four full-time academic years) in Computer Science, Artificial
Intelligence,
Data science, or equivalent, and
+ A master degree (60 ECTS; equivalent to one full-time academic year)
in
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data science,
Computational
Linguistics or equivalent.
+ Alternatively, if your university degree amounts to 300 ECTS credits
(equivalent to five full-time academic years), a master’s degree is
not required.
o If your studies are not organized in ECTS credits, and you meet the
requirement to
enroll in a PhD program at your university, most probably you meet the
requirement
to enroll in the PhD program in Computer Science at Universitat
d'Alacant.
* *Experience:* Not required, but will be considered if applicable.
* *Key skills:* Highly motivated to keep learning and to develop skills in
cutting-edge
multilingual technologies for natural language processing and machine
translation.
* *Languages: *English (able to read and write scientific papers, and to attend
international conferences). Desirable knowledge of Spanish or Catalan.
* *Additional Assets:* Experience in research projects, scientific
writing/publishing,
natural language processing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and
software
development.
*What we offer:*
* *Duration:* 4 years
* *Gross Salary:* € 24,468.22 annually. (+ € 3,223.54 at the end of the
contract)
* *Budget for a research stay in another research institution*: € 5,800.
* *Comprehensive benefits:* Full tuition waiver for the doctoral program,
travel costs
to attend international conferences, social security, employment benefits,
paternity/maternity leave, and free access to the Spanish public health
system.
* *Leave: *4 weeks of annual leave, with the possibility to work remotely
during
Christmas and Easter periods.
*Location: *Alicante is a mid-sized city on Spain’s southeastern coast. Known for its
sunny climate, beaches, and rich cultural heritage, it is a popular tourist destination.
The city is also well-connected, with direct flights to most European capitals. More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicante
*Question? *Send a message to fsanc...@ua.es.
*How to Apply:*
If you plan to apply, please prepare your CV using the template available at
https://ssp.ua.es/es/selecinvest/documentos/plazas-personal-investigador-para-proyectos-investigacion/cva-pid2024/en-cva-pid2024-predoc.docx
and write to fsanc...@ua.es; we will support you in making the formal application thought
the university’s online portal.
When the call officially opens (around *October, 1st*), you will have approximately 10
working days to submit your CV, the application form, and *scanned certificates* for each
merit listed in your CV. The official opening date and deadline will be communicated ASAP.
*VERY IMPORTANT*: All merits listed in the CV *must be duly supported by the corresponding
certificate* (undergraduate and master’s degrees, completed training, research stays,
etc.). In the case of publications you must provide a persistent paper identifier (e.g. DOI).
Guide on how to apply (must read; ask for help if needed):
https://ssp.ua.es/es/selecinvest/documentos/plazas-personal-investigador-para-proyectos-investigacion/guide-on-how-to-apply-for-research-staff-positions-on-research-projects.pdf
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Universitat d'Alacant / Universidad de Alicante
Institut Universitari d'Investigació Informàtica
Dept. de Llenguatges i Sistemes Informàtics
Felipe Sánchez Martínez
Associate Professor - Profesor Titular de Universidad
Tel.: (+34) 965 90 34 00 ext. 2966
Email: fsanc...@ua.es
Web: https://www.dlsi.ua.es/~fsanchez/
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2295-2630 <https://www.dlsi.ua.es/~fsanchez/>
