PhD and Postdoc positions in TALP at UPC, Barcelona

http://www.lsi.upc.edu/~carreras/phdpostdoc2012.html

The TALP Research Center of the Tecnhical University of Catalonia
(UPC) invites applications for PhD and postdoctoral positions in the
context of the research project "XLike: Cross-lingual Knowledge
Extraction", funded by the European Commission.

The goal of the project is to extract and aggregate relational
information from mainstream and social media in multiple
languages. The UPC team in XLike is responsible for the NLP part of
the project. Our agenda includes core research in syntactic-semantic
parsing, grammar induction, robust NLP for processing social media,
and domain adaptation, using supervised and unsupervised statistical
and machine learning approaches. The senior members of the UPC
research team for XLike are Xavier Carreras (leader), Lluís Padró,
Ariadna Quattoni and Jordi Turmo.

The selected researchers will join the TALP Research Center of the UPC
in Barcelona, and will be part of the PASCAL2 Network of
Excellence. The PhD candidate will enroll in a PhD program in Computer
Science at the UPC, with specializations in Artificial Intelligence
and Computing.

The ideal PhD candidate should have a degree in Computer Science,
Mathematics or Computational Linguistics. Candidates that already have a
Masters degree in topics related to Natural Language Processing and
Machine Learning will be preferred. We expect a highly-motivated
student, with fluent English, excellent programming skills, and a
creative mind. Previous experience with topics related to the project is
not required, but will be a plus.

The ideal postdoctoral candidate should have a PhD in Natural Language
Processing, with a strong record of publications in syntactic/semantic
parsing, machine translation and/or machine learning for NLP. We expect
the postdoctoral researcher to take a leading role in her/his research
agenda, and tightly collaborate with the rest of the team. The duration
of the postdoctoral contract will be negotiated with the candidate.

The position is open until filled, but applications sent no later than
May 2012 will receive full consideration. The starting date is September
1, 2012 (earlier or later start is possible depending on the needs of
the selected candidates).

Applications and inquiries should be sent to Xavier Carreras by email
(/carreras /at /lsi /upc /edu/), with subject "PhD/Postdoc application".
Applications should include : your CV, a 1-2 page statement of research
experience and interests, 2-3 references (with email and relation) and
list of publications. Indicate your plans for the next few months, and
your ideal start date (and duration of contract for postdoctoral
candidates). Only PDF.