TWO PHD POSITIONS for MAKING ROBOTS TALK AND THINK @ our LAB

Piek Vossen & Leolani, VU Amsterdam. Fotocredit: Daan Muller.

Make robots talk! There is a lot of talk about robots taking part in our lives but there is little known about how to learn robots talk to us about the world we share. The Spinoza-project Understanding-Language-By-Machines looks for two ambitious, highly-motivated PhD students that want to work on our robot project Leolani. Leolani uses communication to learn about us and the world but she also needs to learn our language at the same time. Communicating and reasoning over the physical world and the people she encounters is a real challenge.

If you want to take on this challenge and be part of an exciting team working on the forefront of communicating machines, please apply at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Location: AMSTERDAM
PhD
FTE: 0.8 – 1.0

JOB DESCRIPTION

You will define your own research topic within the Leolaniframework and become part of the team of researchers that further develops the platform. Your topic may focus on the reasoning and the communication, taking a language understanding or a language generation perspective.

Your duties

  • Define your research topic within the framework
  • Carry out your research according to international standards
  • Publish at least one article per year in an A or B ranked journal or conference proceedings
  • Make your research and experiments publicly available and reproducible

REQUIREMENTS

  • Masters degree in (Computational) Linguistics, Computer Science or Artificial Intelligence
  • Knowledge of and experience with programming in Python
  • Knowledge of and experience with Natural Language Processing

WHAT ARE WE OFFERING?

A challenging position in a socially involved organization. The salary will be in accordance with university regulations for academic personnel and amounts €2,325 (PhD) per month during the first year and increases to €2,972 (PhD) per month during the fourth year, based on a full-time employment. The job profile: is based on the university job ranking system and is vacant for at least 0.8 FTE.

The appointment will initially be for 1 year. After a satisfactory evaluation of the initial appointment, the contract will be extended for a duration of 4 years (or 5 years in case of a 0.8fte contract). Additionally, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam offers excellent fringe benefits and various schemes and regulations to promote a good work/life balance, such as:

  • 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus,
  • contribution to commuting expenses,
  • optional model for designing a personalized benefits package,
  • a wide range of sports facilities which staff may use at a modest charge.

ABOUT VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT AMSTERDAM

The ambition of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is clear: to contribute to a better world through outstanding education and ground-breaking research. And to be a university where personal education and societal involvement play a leading role. Where people from different disciplines and backgrounds work together on innovations and on generating new knowledge. Our teaching and research embrace the whole spectrum of science – from the humanities, the social sciences and the pure sciences through to the life sciences and the medical sciences.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is home to more than 24,500 students. We employ more than 4,600 individuals. The VU campus is easily accessible, located in the heart of Amsterdam’s Zuidas district, a truly inspiring environment for teaching and research.

Diversity
Diversity is one of our university’s core values. We are an inclusive community, and we believe that diversity and international activities enhance the quality of education and research. We are always looking for people who can enhance diversity on our campus thanks to their background and experience.

Faculty of Humanities
The Faculty of Humanities links a number of fields of study: Language, Literature and Communication, Art & Culture, History, Antiquities and Philosophy. Our teaching and research focus on current societal and scientific themes: from artificial intelligence to visual culture, from urbanization to the history of slavery, from ‘fake news’ in journalism to communication in organizations. We strive to ensure small group sizes. Innovative education and interdisciplinary research are our hallmarks.

Working at the Faculty of Humanities means making a real contribution to the quality of leading education and research in an inspiring and personal work and study climate. We employ more than 250 staff members, and we are home to around 1,300 students.
 

About the department, institute, project
The Computational Lexicology and Terminology Lab(CLTL) is one of the world’s leading research groups in Human Language technology. Prof. dr. Piek Vossen, recipient of the NWO Spinoza Prize, heads the group of international researchers that are working on ground-breaking projects, among which the Spinoza project ‘Understanding Language by Machines’. 

CLTL and the research you are involved in is also embedded in the VU-gravity project on Hybrid Intellegence. You will collaborate with many researchers on key notions such as collaborative, explainable, adaptable and responsible AI. 

APPLICATION

Are you interested in this position? Please apply via the application button and upload your curriculum vitae and cover letter until 07/11/2019, 23:59.  In your application letter, describe breifly your ideas about the research you want to do and the methods you are going to use.

The job interviews are planned for December 2019, when possible please take them into account when applying for the position.

Applications received by e-mail will not be processed.

Vacancy questions
If you have any questions regarding this vacancy, you may contact:

Name: Piek Vossen
Position: Professor
E-mail: piek.vossen@vu.nl

JOB POSITION @CLTL: ASSISTANT PROFESSOR COMPUTATIONAL LEXICOLOGY

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR COMPUTATIONAL LEXICOLOGY

Do you have a background in computational linguistics and/or text mining? Do you enjoy teaching and are you interested in research where Natural Language Processing (NLP) is applied in various domains? Would you like to work in an enthusiast, multidisciplinary team of NLP researchers? Please apply at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Assistant Professor
4 year tenure track
Location: AMSTERDAM
FTE: 0.8 – 0,8

JOB DESCRIPTION

The Computational Lexicology and Terminology Lab (CLTL) is looking for a dedicated academic to strengthen our research on developing NLP systems for interdisciplinary research and to support our team in designing and teaching in a new master in the area of Text Mining, which is unique in the Netherlands. Research carried out as part of this position will be integrated in the ambitious NWO-CLARIAH project that develops a research infrastructure for humanities research.

Your duties

  • course design and teaching in the new text mining master
  • research in Natural Language Processing technology, integrated in a research ecosystem  for the humanities (as part of the NWO-CLARIAH project)

REQUIREMENTS

  • PhD in computational linguistics or a PhD in computer science with specialization in computational linguistics
  • strong background in machine learning
  • knowledge of and experience with text mining
  • excellent teaching skills
  • solid publication record

WHAT ARE WE OFFERING?

A challenging position in a socially involved organization. On full-time basis the remuneration amounts to a minimum gross monthly salary of €3,637 (scale 11)
and a maximum €4,978 (scale 11), depending on your education and experience. The job profile: is based on the university job ranking system and is vacant for 0.8 FTE.

The initial employment tenure contract will affect a period of 4 years, with the possibility of extension in case the text mining master is successful and upon positive evaluation of the candidate after 3 years.

Additionally, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam offers excellent fringe benefits and various schemes and regulations to promote a good work/life balance, such as:

  • a maximum of 41 days of annual leave based on full-time employment
  • 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
  • solid pension scheme (ABP)
  • optional model for designing a personalized benefits package
  • a wide range of sports facilities which staff may use at a modest charge

ABOUT VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT AMSTERDAM

The ambition of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is clear: to contribute to a better world through outstanding education and ground-breaking research. And to be a university where personal education and societal involvement play a leading role. Where people from different disciplines and backgrounds work together on innovations and on generating new knowledge. Our teaching and research embrace the whole spectrum of science – from the humanities, the social sciences and the pure sciences through to the life sciences and the medical sciences.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is home to more than 24,500 students. We employ more than 4,600 individuals. The VU campus is easily accessible, located in the heart of Amsterdam’s Zuidas district, a truly inspiring environment for teaching and research.

Diversity
Diversity is one of our university’s core values. We are an inclusive community, and we believe that diversity and international activities enhance the quality of education and research. We are always looking for people who can enhance diversity on our campus thanks to their background and experience.

Faculty of Humanities
The Faculty of Humanities links a number of fields of study: Language, Literature and Communication, Art & Culture, History, Antiquities and Philosophy. Our teaching and research focus on current societal and scientific themes: from artificial intelligence to visual culture, from urbanization to the history of slavery, from ‘fake news’ in journalism to communication in organizations. We strive to ensure small group sizes. Innovative education and interdisciplinary research are our hallmarks.

Working at the Faculty of Humanities means making a real contribution to the quality of leading education and research in an inspiring and personal work and study climate. We employ more than 250 staff members, and we are home to around 1,300 students.
 
About the department, institute, project
The Computational Lexicology and Terminology Lab (CLTL) is one of the world’s leading research groups in Human Language technology. Prof. dr. Piek Vossen, recipient of the NWO Spinoza Prize, heads the group of international researchers that are working on ground-breaking projects, among which the Spinoza project ‘Understanding Language by Machines’, ‘Dutch FrameNet’ and ‘Make Robots Talk‘.

More information about the team, the project and our teaching can be found on our website: http://cltl.nl

APPLICATION

Are you interested in this position? Please apply via the application button and upload your curriculum vitae and cover letter until 15 September 2019.

The job interviews are planned end of September, when possible please take them into account when applying for the position.

Applications received by e-mail will not be processed.

Vacancy questions
If you have any questions regarding this vacancy, you may contact:

Name: Piek Vossen
Position: Full professor
E-mail: piek.vossen@vu.nl
Telephone: +31 20 59 86457

No agencies

 

Apply through this link

 
Job area: Assistant Professor
Educational Level:PhD
VU unit: Faculty of  Humanities
Minimum FTE: 0.8
Contract type: Temporary with prospects of permanent employment
Minimum salary scale: €3,637 (scale 11)
Maximum salary scale :€4,978 (scale 11)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen
Amsterdam De Boelelaan 1105

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Map data ©2019 Google
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Project meeting Dutch FrameNet at 11-7-2019

On the 11th of July 2019, we held the second meeting of the Open Dutch FrameNet project. In attendance were Piek Vossen, Johan Bos, Antske Fokkens, Filip Ilievski, Tommaso Caselli, Malvina Nissim, and Marten Postma. 

The meeting was held at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. The core item of the meeting was the pilot data, which was created before the meeting and processed by both research groups.

Interested? You can read more about the meeting at:

Project meeting 11-7-2019

PhD position in NWO project ‘Framing Situations in the Dutch language’ (closing June 20th, 2019)

PHD POSITION IN NWO PROJECT ‘FRAMING SITUATIONS IN THE DUTCH LANGUAGE’

The official website of the job add is this one, which should be used to apply.

Location: AMSTERDAM
FTE: 4 years 1.0 FTE or 5 years 0.8 FTEJob description
Language plays a central role in framing, as we choose which nouns and verbs describe or frame, a given situation. For some languages, researchers created databases (called FrameNets) containing rich collections of conceptual schemas (frames) that describe situations from a particular perspective. These frames are connected to words and sentences that express them. Several lexical resources exist for Dutch, but no FrameNet. Moreover, we have limited knowledge of the variation of framing in Dutch and how this compares to other languages. The project’s objectives are 1) to create a unique data set where similar situations are framed by many different sources and texts using a newly developed data-to-text method, 2) to capture the variation in framing these situations in Dutch and other languages, 3) to capture semantic-pragmatic factors underlying the usage of different frames for similar situations, and 4) to develop semantic frame and role annotation software.
    The PhD will work on subproject 1 Framing similar situations in Dutch. Language is extremely rich when it comes to providing framing expressions, but how rich is the Dutch language and when do we use what expression? These are the research questions addressed by the PhD. The PhD will analyze both the lexical competence and performance of framing situations in Dutch across a variety of genres and for a set of domains. This analysis will not only capture the vocabulary and frame relations specific for the domains but also address the pragmatic implicatures of using these frames in specific contexts.
    To be able to include such contextual factors the PhD will use the situation-grounded texts collected by the PostDoc following the data-to-text approach (Vossen et al. 2018a,b). This collection of texts will exhibit a considerable variety of framing in relation to a predefined set of semantic-conceptual frames relevant to human-registered incidents, such as calamities (violence, health, accidents, weather incidents), crime, sports and economy (sales, acquisitions, labor-conflicts, employment, product releases).

Prof. Dr. Piek Vossen coordinates the project and the PhD will also collaborate with Antske Fokkens (Assistant Professor) and Marten Postma (PostDoc) and the research staff at CLTL. Besides, the PhD will collaborate with the University of Groningen (under the direction of Prof. Dr. Johan Bos).

References
-Piek Vossen, Filip Ilievski, Marten Postma, and Roxane Segers. 2018a. Don’t Annotate, but Validate: a Data-to-Text Method for Capturing Event Data. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018). European Language Resources Association (ELRA), Miyazaki, Japan. https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/L18-1480
-Piek Vossen, Antske Fokkens, Isa Maks, and Chantal van Son. 2018b. Towards an Open Dutch FrameNet lexicon and corpus. In Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018). European
Language Resources Association (ELRA), Miyazaki, Japan. http://lrec-conf.org/workshops/lrec2018/W5/pdf/book_of_proceedings.pdf

Your duties

  • investigate the variation in framing similar situations.
  • test lexical pragmatic hypotheses in relation to framing
  • work on the synthesis of the project in collaboration with the Multilingual FrameNet project of Berkeley University.

Requirements

  • a Masters degree (MA or MSc) in computational linguistics or linguistics with computational skills
  • good knowledge and control of the Dutch and English language
  • a deep interest in the semantic and pragmatic aspects of language
  • programming skills (preferably Python)
  • can work well in a team
  • preferably knowledge/experience of/with FrameNet
  • preferably knowledge and experience in lexicology and corpus linguistics

What are we offering?
A challenging position in a socially involved organization. The salary will be in accordance with university regulations for academic personnel and amounts €2,325 gross per month during the first year and increases to €2,972 gross per month during the fourth year, based on full-time employment. The job profile: is based on the university job ranking system and is vacant for at least 0.8 FTE.

The initial employment contract will affect a period of 1 year. After satisfactory evaluation of the initial appointment, the contract will be extended for another 3 years.

Additionally, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam offers excellent fringe benefits and various schemes and regulations to promote a good work/life balance, such as:

  • 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
  • a maximum of 41 days of annual leave based on full-time employment
  • contribution to commuting expenses

About Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
The ambition of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is clear: to contribute to a better world through outstanding education and ground-breaking research. And to be a university where personal education and societal involvement play a leading role. Where people from different disciplines and backgrounds work together on innovations and on generating new knowledge. Our teaching and research embrace the whole spectrum of science – from the humanities, the social sciences and the pure sciences through to the life sciences and the medical sciences.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is home to more than 23,000 students. We employ more than 4,500 individuals. The VU campus is easily accessible, located in the heart of Amsterdam’s Zuidas district, a truly inspiring environment for teaching and research.

Diversity
Diversity is one of our university’s core values. We are an inclusive community, and we believe that diversity and international activities enhance the quality of education and research. We are always looking for people who can enhance diversity on our campus thanks to their background and experience.

Faculty of Humanities
The Faculty of Humanities links a number of fields of study: Language, Literature and Communication, Art & Culture, History, Antiquities and Philosophy. Our teaching and research focus on current societal and scientific themes: from artificial intelligence to visual culture, from urbanization to the history of slavery, from ‘fake news’ in journalism to communication in organizations. We strive to ensure small group sizes. Innovative education and interdisciplinary research are our hallmarks.

Working at the Faculty of Humanities means making a real contribution to the quality of leading education and research in an inspiring and personal work and study climate. We employ more than 250 staff members, and we are home to around 1,300 students.
 
Application
Are you interested in this position? Please apply via the application button and upload your curriculum vitae and cover letter until 20 June 2019. The job interviews are planned for  3 and 5 July 2019, when possible please take them into account when applying for the position.

Applications received by e-mail will not be processed.

Vacancy questions 
If you have any questions regarding this vacancy, you may contact:

Name: Prof. dr. P.TH.J.M. (Piek) Vossen
Position: professor
E-mail: piek.vossen@vu.nl
Telephone: +31 (0)20 59 86457

No agencies