We are hiring: Postdoctoral researcher/PhD candidate in Computational Linguistics

The Amsterdam Academic Alliance (AAA) is a joint initiative of the two Amsterdam-based universities – VU and the UvA – aimed at intensifying collaboration with each other and with other knowledge institutions in the region. The objective of the AAA is to cement Amsterdam’s position as a major international player and hub of academic excellence. The alliance is to result in different outcomes in each scientific field.

This advertisement concerns one of the 14 positions. The Network Institute of the VU University of Amsterdam is looking for a motivated Postdoctoral researcher or PhD student for the project “From text to Deep Data”. The candidate will be part of the Network Institute of the VU University Amsterdam and will work within multidisciplinary teams of humanities researchers and computer scientists.
The work will be done in the context of a larger research program called “QuPiD2: Quality and Perspectives in Deep Data” in collaboration with other researchers aiming all together to achieve a formal modeling of quality and perspectives.

As part of the QuPiD2 research team, the candidate will develop 1) a perspective model for representing the subjective relation between the source of information and the statements in it, and 2) software to detect such interpersonal communication layers and perspectives from text. The project will transform big unstructured text data into deep data that show the emotions, opinions and view points on the changing world. It will reveal the social networks and dynamics within trust networks that influence our world views.

Tasks
1. Studying existing models for handling provenance, attribution, sentiments, opinions and emotions as expressed in text.
2. Developing an overarching perspective model for representing the subjective relations between sources and their statements. The model will initially be based on textual data but should show the capacity to model perspectives on any type of (big) data.
3. Using semantic web standards, e.g. RDF, SPARQL, to represent and access the data within the project
4. Studying existing NLP approaches to detect perspective relations in texts. Both English and Dutch texts will be considered.
5. Developing a machine-crowd empowered processing of textual sources for populating the QuPiD2 model
6. Creating data sets for training and evaluation through expert annotation and crowd annotation.
7. Developing new components and approaches to obtain the perspective values within the model from textual data.
8. Evaluate the components against the data sets developed and within an application environment.
9. Collaboration with the QuPiD2 program research team
10. Publish the results of the work as scientific articles in high ranked journals and conferences, as well as present the work at relevant scientific venues

Requirements
The candidate should have a strong background (MA) in computational linguistics and semantic web technology with expertise in data modelling, modelling perspectives, subjectivity and attribution relations expressed in natural language. The candidate should have sufficient programming skills and experience with data engineering and text mining.

Further particulars
The appointment will be for a period of three years for a postdoc and four years for a PhD student. You can find information about our excellent employment conditions at www.workingatvu.nl such as:
• Remuneration of 8,3% end-of-year bonus and 8% holiday allowance;
• Solid pension scheme (ABP);
• A minimum of 29 holidays In case of full-time employment;
• Possibilities to save up holidays for sabbatical leave.

Salary
For a postdoc, the salary will be in accordance with university regulations for academic personnel, and depending on experience, range from a minimum of € 2,476 gross per month up to a maximum of € 3,908 gross per month (salary scale 10) based on a full-time employment.

For a PhD student, the salary will be in accordance with university regulations for academic personnel, range from a minimum of € 2,125 gross per month in the first year up to a maximum of € 2,717 (salary scale 85.0-3) based on full-time employment.

Information
For additional information please contact:
Prof. Piek Vossen
phone: +31 681773878 or +31 20 59 86457
e-mail: info@cltl.nl / attention Piek Vossen
website: http://www.cltl.nl

Dr. Lora Aroyo
Phone: +31 620329972
e-mail: lora.aroyo@vu.nl
website: http://lora-aroyo.org, http://wm.cs.vu.nl

Application
Applications may only be submitted via informatica.secretariaat.few@vu.nl. To process your application immediately, please quote the vacancy number and the title of the position you are applying for in the subject-line. Applications must include a detailed curriculum vitae, a motivation letter explaining why you are the right candidate, list of projects you have worked on with brief descriptions of your contributions and the names and contact addresses of two academic references from which information about the candidate can be obtained. All these should be grouped in one PDF attachment.

Applications will be accepted until 10 May 2015.

Any other correspondence in response to this advertisement will not be dealt with.