[iva] Job Opportunity: Post-Doctoral Researcher in Natural Language Dialogue Processing, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

[Emer Gilmartin]

*Apologies for multiple posting*

*Post-Doctoral Researcher in Natural Language Dialogue Processing at ADAPT
Centre, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.*

The Science Foundation Ireland ADAPT Research Centre ( adaptcentre.ie ),
seeks to appoint a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to conduct research in the
areas of stochastic/neural network natural language (spoken) dialogue
processing and personalisation for human computer interaction with an
emphasis on social/informal dialogue in conversational relational
agents/virtual companions.

The researcher will support research in the ADAPT Research Theme
“Personalising the User Experience”, working towards creating dramatic
improvements in how users engage with content by enriching the user
experience, while alleviating current frustrations of cognitive overload
when performing diverse actions on content. The work is motivated by the
volume and veracity of information that end users are tasked with trying to
make sense of on a daily basis. The theme is revolutionising how users
discover, share and work with multimodal content as part of the global
conversation by focusing on pertinent content/actions. There is a strong
connection with the theme entitled “Interacting with Global Content” which
overall seeks to empower people to interact with digital content in ways
that are more intuitive and that mimic the richness of human perception in
all interaction. The candidate should have a mature personal research plan
in a relevant area of dialogue processing that complements the overall
research goal. The researcher will also be responsible for supporting
research in in a number of areas including:

   -

   ○  interactive (dialogic) information retrieval
   -

   ○  user modeling
   Thus, the ideal researcher will typically have specific expertise in
   dialogue processing, and be able to identify how they can contribute to
   wider research in (multimodal) dialogue systems. Reporting to a Principal
   Investigator, the successful candidate will work within a large group of
   Postdoctoral Researchers, PhD students and Software Developers.

   We live in a world of global digital connectivity where individuals,
   communities and businesses are communicating globally at incredible speed,
   in enormous volumes, across the world’s languages and over an
   ever-increasing range of devices. ADAPT’s vision is to leverage this
   torrent of digital content to enable unprecedented levels of global
   engagement among people, companies and communities. This is achieved
   through a unique collaboration between world-class research groups in
   multilingual natural language processing (NLP), multimedia content analysis
   and transformation, personalisation and multimodal interaction. Within
   ADAPT and its affiliated group of international and commercialisation
   projects, these posts will deliver the advances in linked data and semantic
   technologies that are key to efficiently manage the content, language and
   knowledge assets that underpin intelligent global customer engagement.

Background on the ADAPT Centre

Why join ADAPT @ TCD?

   -

   ●  Work on hard problems in an interdisciplinary and exciting research
   environment. The ADAPT Centre combines the expertise of more than 150
   researchers at Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, University
   College Dublin, and Dublin Institute of Technology. As well as conducting
   core research we have an active industry engagement programme and working
   on exciting and successful applied research projects with some of the
   world’s leading brands.
   -

   ●  Work in a University where excellence of research is valued. Trinity
   is Ireland’s No. 1 University and is ranked in 88th position in the top 100
   world universities (QS World University Rankings 2017/18).

●  Work in a centre focussed on advancing your career. Whether you want to
take an academic, industrial, or entrepreneurial career path, ADAPT prides
itself in the support and mentoring that enables all its postdocs to reach
their full potential. This year alone ADAPT’s postdoc-to-PI programme has
helped three postdocs transition to be Principal Investigators on their own
H2020 projects, while four other have recently won funding with ADAPT
support to realise the commercialisation of their research through spin
outs and licensing.

For further information, please contact Prof. Vincent Wade (
vwade at scss.tcd.ie).

Standard Duties and Responsibilities of the Post

Reporting to his/her Principal Investigator the Researcher will:



   - ● Conduct a specified programme of research under the supervision and
   direction of the Principal Investigator (PI)
   -

   ●  Support the PI and research group in the design, development and
   implementation of the research programme.
   -

   ●  Research solutions to problems in a number of areas of interest,
   including: o Dialogue policy modeling

   o Belief state tracking
   o Natural language understanding and generation o Semantic embedding
   o Integration of external task/activity controllers o Memorisation and
   recall
   o Ontology acquisition
   o Question answering
   o Summarisation
   o Turn taking
   o Incremental learning
   -

   ●  Substantially contribute to the identification of external funding
   sources and assist in the writing of grant proposals.
   -

   ●  Mentor, assist and supervise postgraduate research students as
   required.
   -

   ●  Assist the PI in the management/co-ordination of key aspects of the
   research programme

   (e.g. financial management, reporting, equipment management etc.).
   -

   ●  Engage in the dissemination of the results of the research in which
   he/she is engaged to

   the wider research community with the support and under the supervision
   of the Principal

   Investigator.
   -

   ●  Engage in appropriate training and development opportunities as
   required by the Principal

   Investigator, the School or Research Centre, or the University.
   -

   ●  Engage with internal and external stakeholders including academic and
   industry

   partners/collaborators as appropriate.
   -

   ●  Carry out administrative work associated with the programme as
   necessary.
   -

   ●  Participate in ADAPT Centre activities, such as industry showcases
   and annual reviews.
   -

   ●  Report on progress at meetings and in writing to ADAPT Centre
   Management.
   -

   ●  Produce top-quality journal and conference publications, in
   collaboration with the

   Principal Investigator (PI).

Funding Information

The position is funded through the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) ADAPT
Research Centre.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Candidates must have a PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence,
Computational Linguistics or related, with a strong dialogue processing and
machine learning foundation. Applicants should have a minimum of 2-3 years
relevant postdoctoral research experience.

Knowledge & Experience (Essential & Desirable)

Essential

   -

   ●  A strong record of international peer-reviewed publication and
   presentation in top-tier conferences in Natural Language Dialogue
   Systems/Processing
   -

   ●  A strong record of international peer-reviewed publication in
   top-tier journals, commensurate with career stage
   -

   ●  Extensive Machine Learning and Deep Learning experience, with
   Reinforcement Learning a plus
   -

   ●  In depth understanding of Relational Agents/Virtual Companions
   -

   ●  Excellent programming skills in Python, C/C++
   -

   ●  Good command of a current deep learning framework e.g. TensorFlow,
   MXNet
   -

   ●  Participation in writing of grant applications
   -

   ●  Mentoring of research students
   -

   ●  Excellent written and oral proficiency in English
   -

   ●  Strong communication and interpersonal skills, both written and
   verbal
   -

   ●  Desire to learn about new products, technologies and keep abreast of
   new products and

   technical and research developments

   Desirable (i.e. the following would be advantageous)


   -

   ●  Dialogue corpus design, collection and annotation
   -

   ●  Experience of high-performance computing facilities
   -

   ●  Exposure to commercialisation of research

Application Procedure

Candidates should submit a cover letter (1xA4 page maximum) explaining why
you are suitable for the position together with a full curriculum vitae to
include the names and contact details of 3 referees (email addresses
required) to:

Name: Jenny Walsh
Email Address: jenny.walsh at adaptcentre.ie Contact Telephone Number: +353 1
896 1797

Please include the job reference AD1A-PD1 in the subject heading.

Further details attached.


-- 
Speech Communication Lab
School of Computer Science and Statistics
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin 2
Ireland
Éire
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