Post-doctoral researcher, audio signal processing, at Microsoft Research

Position Title: Post-doctoral researcher

Organization Name: Microsoft Research

Location: Redmond, WA, USA.

Microsoft Research (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/) is looking for one or more post-doctoral researchers in the general area of audio signal processing. They will perform research in sound capture and rendering, speech enhancement, arrays of transducers processing, psychoacoustics, human perception of sounds and images.

Strong background in the area of audio and speech signal processing, good publication record, and experience in creating a working audio systems are requirements. Expertise in speech enhancement and/or psychoacoustics is a strong advantage; good engineering and coding skills are preferred. Ability or experience to work with engineering teams is a plus.

For enquiries please send e-mail to Dr. Ivan Tashev at ivantash@microsoft.com.

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Eight Research Positions in Speech Synthesis and Speech Recognition at Universities of Edinburgh, Cambridge, Sheffield

NATURAL SPEECH TECHNOLOGY - http://www.natural-speech-technology.org

Centre for Speech Technology Research, University of Edinburgh
Speech Research Group, University of Cambridge
Speech and Hearing Group, University of Sheffield

Natural Speech Technology (NST) is an EPSRC Programme Grant, involving the Universities of Edinburgh, Cambridge and Sheffield. Its objective is to significantly advance the state-of-the-art in speech technology by making it more natural, approaching human levels of reliability, adaptability and conversational richness. NST starts in May 2011, and has a duration of 5 years.

8 research posts in speech recognition and speech synthesis are available on the project, across the three universities.

For further details please see http://www.natural-speech-technology.org/jobs.html

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Ouverture d'un poste d’Assistant-e en psycholinguistique (70%)

au Laboratoire de psycholinguistique expérimentale

Niveau :

-      Assistant-e doctorant-e

Titre exigé :                   

-      Master en psychologie (ou en linguistique), ou titre jugé équivalent

Profil souhaité :

-      diplôme post-licence en psychologie ou en linguistique

-      connaissances en psycholinguistique et/ou linguistique

-      connaissances en informatique, logiciels d’expérimentation, analyses statistiques

-      bonnes bases en expérimentation

Charges :

-      thèse en psychologie (40% du temps)

-      participation à l’enseignement en psycholinguistique aux niveaux du Bachelor et du Master en Psychologie

-      encadrement de recherches d’étudiants en psycholinguistique expérimentale

-      participation aux activités de recherche de l’équipe

Salaire brut           : selon barème de l’Université, dès classe 8/0, soit 43'724.-à 70%

Entrée en fonction : 1^er septembre 2011

Taux d’activité      : 70 %

Merci d’envoyer votre CV et une lettre de motivation

d’ici au 31 mai 2011 à

Mme Carole Bigler

Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l’éducation

Université de Genève

40 bd du Pont d'Arve

1211 Genève 4 – Suisse

Tel: +41 (0) 22.379.91.55

Email : carole.bigler@unige.ch

Des renseignements sur le poste peuvent être obtenus auprès du Prof. Uli Frauenfelder :

+41(0) 22 379 91 41 ou ulrich.frauenfelder@unige.ch http://www.unige.ch/fapse/psycholinguistique

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Le laboratoire de psycholinguistique expérimentale de la Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l’éducation (Université de Genève) met au concours:

1 poste de doctorant-e FNS à 100%

en psycholinguistique expérimentale

Description:

Ce poste s'inscrit dans le cadre du projet de recherche financé par le Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique (FNS) dont l’intitulé est le suivant : « Relative contribution of multiple segmentation cues to lexical identification and acquisition ». L’objectif principal du projet est d’explorer comment différents indices sous-lexicaux fournis par la structure phonétique, phonologique et rythmique de la parole contribuent à l’identification et à l’acquisition lexicale. Le-la candidat-e participera à la récolte et à l’analyse des données et développera un projet de thèse sur l'un des thèmes abordés par la recherche.

Titre exigé : Maîtrise universitaire en psychologie ou Maîtrise universitaire en sciences du langage avec spécialisation phonétique/phonologie, ou titre jugé équivalent.

Profil:

Les travaux antérieurs du-de la candidat-e devront mettre en évidence un intérêt particulier pour la psycholinguistique expérimentale. La motivation à faire une thèse de doctorat dans le cadre de la recherche soutenue par le projet sera déterminante dans le choix du-de la candidat-e.

Entrée en fonction: été 2011 (ou à convenir)

Durée: 3 ans

Lieu de travail: laboratoire de psycholinguistique expérimentale, Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l’éducation, Genève

Salaire brut: de CHF 40’200 à CHF 46’200 

Délai pour le dépôt des candidatures: 31 Mai 2011 (prévoir un entretien éventuel en juin)

Dossier de candidature:

Les personnes intéressées sont priées de soumettre un dossier de candidature incluant une lettre de motivation, leur Curriculum Vitae, copie du diplôme de maîtrise (ou master), ainsi que la copie électronique d'une publication scientifique et/ou du mémoire de fin d'études (ou, à défaut, une recommandation du directeur-trice de mémoire). Pour de plus amples informations, veuillez vous adresser à Madame Odile Bagou : Odile.Bagou@unige.ch. Le dossier doit être envoyé par e-mail à l'attention du Prof. Ulrich Frauenfelder (Ulrich.Frauenfelder@unige.ch).

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Title:  Research Positions in Speech Synthesis and Speech Recognition
Link: http://www.natural-speech-technology.org/jobs.html

Details below:

NATURAL SPEECH TECHNOLOGY
http://www.natural-speech-technology.org

Centre for Speech Technology Research, University of Edinburgh
Speech Research Group, University of Cambridge
Speech and Hearing Group, University of Sheffield

Natural Speech Technology (NST) is an EPSRC Programme Grant, involving the Universities of Edinburgh, Cambridge and Sheffield.  Its objective is to significantly advance the state-of-the-art in speech technology by making it more natural, approaching human levels of reliability, adaptability and conversational richness.  NST starts in May 2011, and has a duration of 5 years.

8 research posts in speech recognition and speech synthesis are available on the project.

The overall aim of NST is to develop new speech technologies and theoretical frameworks which are adaptable, personalised, and expressive.  These technologies will be closely linked to exemplar applications and the needs of the project User Group.   We have four main technical objectives:

1. Learning and Adaptation:  Models and algorithms for synthesis and recognition that can learn from continuous streams of data, can compactly represent and adapt to new scenarios and speaking styles, and seamlessly adapt to new situations and contexts almost instantaneously.

2.  Natural Transcription:  Speech recognisers that can detect ``who spoke what, when, and how'' in any acoustic environment and for any task domain.

3.  Natural Synthesis:  Controllable speech synthesisers that automatically learn from data, and are capable of generating the full expressive diversity of natural speech.

4.  Exemplar Applications:  Deployment of these advances in novel applications, with an emphasis on the health/social domain, personal listeners, and the needs of the User Group stakeholders.

The available positions are listed below, and at http://www.natural-speech-technology.org/jobs.html

To apply:  For each position for which you wish to be considered, please apply to the host university using the corresponding web link in the list below (which also gives further information about the position).  In addition, please also send an email including which jobs you are applying for and containing your CV as an attachment to:
<nst-jobs@inf.ed.ac.uk>

Closing date:  10 June 2011


AVAILABLE POSITIONS:


1.  University of Edinburgh.  Science Manager in Speech Technology.

  http://www.jobs.ed.ac.uk/vacancies/index.cfm?fuseaction=vacancies.detail&vacancy_ref=3014291

  Reporting to the Programme Director, Prof Steve Renals, the Science Manager will ensure synchronisation, motivation and communications between the individual projects that make up the NST Programme Grant, and will also be responsible for developing and maintaining the interactions with the User Group. The Science Manager will work closely with lead researchers of each individual project, ensuring results are communicated across the consortium, and building liaisons with any User Group members for whom the project has relevance.

  In addition, the Science Manager is expected to take a leading research role in one or more the individual projects in NST, working on statistical parametric speech synthesis and/or large vocabulary speech recognition.

  The successful candidate should have or a PhD in speech processing, computer science, cognitive science, linguistics, engineering, mathematics, or a related discipline. He or she must have excellent programming skills, a background in statistical modelling using Hidden Markov Models, research experience in speech recognition and/or speech synthesis, and a strong publications record in international journals and conferences.  He or she will also have experience and evidence of effective independent contribution to collaborative research teams. More broadly, he or she will have a demonstrated ability to lead, design and complete research projects, to solve problems independently and make original contributions to research.

  Informal inquiries can be made by email to Prof Steve Renals (s.renals@ed.ac.uk) or Prof Simon King (Simon.King@ed.ac.uk)

  This post is fixed-term for 2 years, with the possibility of extension.


2.  University of Edinburgh.  Postdoctoral Research Associate in Speech Synthesis.

  http://www.jobs.ed.ac.uk/vacancies/index.cfm?fuseaction=vacancies.detail&vacancy_ref=3014313

  This position is concerned with research in statistical parametric speech synthesis. The work will have a particular focus on the development of structured acoustic models which take account of factors such as accent and speaking style, and on the development of machine learning techniques for vocoding. You will have (or be near completion of) a PhD in speech processing, computer science, cognitive science, linguistics, engineering, mathematics, or a related discipline. You will have the necessary programming ability to conduct research in this area, a background in statistical modelling using Hidden Markov Models, speech signal processing, and research experience in speech synthesis.

  A background in one or more of the following areas is also desirable: statistical parametric text-to-speech synthesis using HMMs and HSMMs; glottal source modelling; speech signal modelling; speaker adaptation using the MLLR or MAP family of techniques; familiarity with software tools including HTK, HTS, Festival; and familiarity with modern machine learning.

  Informal inquiries can be made by email to Prof Steve Renals (s.renals@ed.ac.uk) or Prof Simon King (Simon.King@ed.ac.uk)

  This post is fixed-term for 2 years, with the possibility of extension.


3.  University of Edinburgh.  Postdoctoral Research Associate in Speech Recognition.

  http://www.jobs.ed.ac.uk/vacancies/index.cfm?fuseaction=vacancies.detail&vacancy_ref=3014315

  This position is concerned with research in large vocabulary speech recognition, with a focus on models and algorithms that enable coverage of a wide set of domains. The work will have a particular focus on acoustic model structures factored in terms of acoustic environment, channel condition, band- width, speaker, and speaker style, and on factorised model building that can include supervised and unsupervised sources. You will have (or be near completion of) a PhD in speech processing, computer science, cognitive science, linguistics, engineering, mathematics, or a related discipline. You will have the necessary programming ability to conduct research in this area, a background in statistical modelling using Hidden Markov Models and research experience in speech recognition.

  A background in one or more of the following areas is also desirable: subspace Gaussian mixture models; joint factor analysis; speaker adaptation using the MLLR or MAP family of techniques; familiarity with software tools including HTK and Kaldi; experience of the design, construction and evaluation of large vocabulary speech recognition systems; distant speech recognition; and multilingual acoustic modelling.

  Informal inquiries can be made by email to Prof Steve Renals (s.renals@ed.ac.uk) or Prof Simon King (Simon.King@ed.ac.uk)

  This post is fixed-term for 2 years, with the possibility of extension.


4.  University of Sheffield.  Senior Research Fellow in Speech Transcription.

   http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ACP385/senior-research-fellow-in-natural-speech-technology-speech-transcription/

  You will  work on the Natural Transcription theme, addressing wide domain coverage, environment models and canonical acoustic models. Wide domain coverage in speech transcription is concerned with addressing the poor generalisation of recognition systems to new domains. Environment modelling means the automatic learning of acoustic scenarios for the benefit of improved far field recognition performance. Both of these rely on improved adaptability in recognition systems, addressed by the project on canonical acoustic modelling. You are required to work well in research teams and actively contribute to research advancement of the NST programme, the SpandH research group and the Department of Computer Science. All team members are expected to publish or contribute to publication in international conferences and journals at the forefront of the field.

  Applicants should have a PhD (or have equivalent experience) in a related subject area.  Solid knowledge of Unix type operating systems and programming in C/C++ is required.  Applicants should have experience in one or more of the following areas:  Acoustic modelling for automatic speech recognition, language modelling for automatic speech recognition, statistical pattern processing and the Hidden Markov Model Toolkit (HTK). Applicants are required to have an excellent track record in research of speech recognition and/or machine learning topics. Experience in research management is essential for this position as candidates are expected to take a leading role in site scientific management.

  Informal inquiries can be made by email to Dr Thomas Hain (t.hain@dcs.shef.ac.uk) or Prof Phil Green (p.green@dcs.shef.ac.uk).

  This post is fixed-term for 2 years, with the possibility of extension.


5. University of Sheffield.  Research Associate in Speech Transcription

  http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ACP392/research-associate-in-natural-speech-technology-speech-transcription/

  You will be expected to work on NST projects on wide domain coverage, environment models and canonical acoustic models. Wide domain coverage in speech transcription is concerned with addressing the poor generalisation of recognition systems to new domains. Environment modelling means the automatic learning of acoustic scenarios for the benefit of improved far field recognition performance. Both of these rely on improved adaptability in recognition systems, addressed by the project on canonical acoustic modelling.

  Applicants should have a PhD (or have equivalent experience) in a related subject area.  Solid knowledge of Unix type operating systems and programming in C/C++ is required.  Applicants should have experience in one or more of the following areas:  Acoustic modelling for automatic speech recognition, language modelling for automatic speech recognition, statistical pattern processing and the Hidden Markov Model Toolkit (HTK). Applicants are required to have a good track record in research of speech recognition and/or machine learning topics demonstrated by publications in international journals and conferences. Candidates are required to work well in research teams and actively contribute to research advancement of the NST programme, the SpandH research group and the Department of Computer Science. All team members are expected to publish or contribute to publication in international conferences and journals at the forefront of the field.

  Informal inquiries can be made by email to Dr Thomas Hain (t.hain@dcs.shef.ac.uk) or Prof Phil Green (p.green@dcs.shef.ac.uk).

  This post is fixed-term for 2 years, with the possibility of extension.



6.  University of Sheffield.  Research Associate in Clinical Applications of Speech Technology.

  http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ACP387/research-associate-in-natural-speech-technology-clinical-applications/

  You will work on the NST project homeService, which will develop personalised, adaptive speech technology allowing users (who may be disabled and may have speech disorders) to interact with environmental control systems and home monitoring devices. The goals are to help people who cannot use conventional (keyboard/ mouse/screen) interfaces, people who prefer not to use such interfaces, in circumstances where conventional interfaces are impractical and for people who cannot communicate with others verbally, because their speech is disordered or they cannot speak at all. To meet these challenges our overarching goal is spoken language technology which adapts to the voice and the needs of an individual, a 'personal adaptive listener'.

  Applicants should have a PhD (or have equivalent experience) in a related subject area.  Solid knowledge of Unix type operating systems and programming in C/C++ is required.  Applicants should have experience in one or more of the following areas:  Acoustic modelling for automatic speech recognition, language modelling for automatic speech recognition, statistical pattern processing and the Hidden Markov Model Toolkit (HTK). Applicants are required to have a track record in research of speech recognition, but must also demonstrate 'user-facing' skills, since homeService  will be based on a longitudinal study in which NST technology will be deployed in user's homes. Candidates are required to work well in research teams and actively contribute to research advancement of the NST programme, the SpandH research group and the Department of Computer Science. All team members are expected to publish or contribute to publication in international conferences and journals at the forefront of the field.

  Informal inquiries can be made by email to Prof Phil Green (p.green@dcs.shef.ac.uk) or Dr Thomas Hain (t.hain@dcs.shef.ac.uk).

  This post is fixed-term for 3 years, with the possibility of extension.


7.  University of Cambridge.  Two Research Associates in Speech Technology.

  http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/hr/jobs/vacancies.cgi?job=8189&wantsFull=1&adv=1

  Two positions for Research Associates will be available to work on NST at Cambridge. The five year programme is a collaboration between the University of Cambridge and the Universities of Edinburgh and Sheffield. It aims to significantly improve the state-of-the-art in large vocabulary speech recognition and speech synthesis. Appointments will be made for up to two years with the possibility of extension.

  Applicants must have a very good first degree in a relevant discipline and would normally have a PhD degree in an area related to speech technology. It is expected that candidates will have a good knowledge of software tools including HTK and HTS. A good knowledge of C/C++ is required. In addition, experience in one or more of the following technical areas is necessary: machine learning;  acoustic modelling techniques including methods for training and adaptation;  HMM-based speech synthesis;  language modelling for large vocabulary speech recognition.

  Informal inquiries can be made by email to Prof Phil Woodland (pcw@eng.cam.ac.uk), Dr Mark Gales (mjfg@eng.cam.ac.uk), or Dr Bill Byrne (bill.byrne@eng.cam.ac.uk).

  This post is fixed-term for 2 years, with the possibility of extension.

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Le groupe 'Traitement du Langage Parlé' du LIMSI/CNRS
(http://www.limsi.fr/tlp) recrute un post-doctorant pour travailler sur
le sujet :

Adaptation diachronique et thématique dans un système de reconnaissance.

 Le travail se fera en partie sur le projet ANR EDyLex
 (http://sites.google.com/site/projetedylex/), et en partie dans le cadre
 du programme Quaero (www.quaero.org/).

Les candidats devront savoir programmer dans un environnement Unix, et
être capable de parler et écrire en anglais.
Ils devront avoir obtenu un doctorat en traitement de la parole.

La durée du contrat est de 1 an.

Le travail se déroulera au LIMSI/CNRS qui se situe à Orsay, au sud de Paris.

Les candidatures devront être adressées, accompagnées d'un CV, à
Jean-Luc Gauvain(gauvain@limsi.fr) et Gilles ADDA (gadda@limsi.fr).
________________________________________________________

The Spoken Language Processing Group at the LIMSI/CNRS
(http://www.limsi.fr/tlp) is looking for a postdoc to participate in a
research project on 'Diachronic and thematic adaptation in a speech
transcription system'.

The work will be conducted in the framework of the EDyLex project
(http://sites.google.com/site/projetedylex/), and of the Quaero
program (www.quaero.org/).

Applicants should be experienced programmers, be familiar with the
Unix environment, and be able to speak and write in English.  The
successful candidate will have a PhD in speech processing.

The position, to be fulfilled as soon as possible, is opened for one
year.

Location: LIMSI/CNRS Orsay, France (South of Paris)

Interested candidates should send a CV to Jean-Luc Gauvain
(gauvain@limsi.fr)
and Gilles Adda (gadda@limsi.fr)

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Title: Professorships on Speech Coding, Semantic Audio Processing and
Psychoacoustics at International Audio Laboratories Erlangen, Germany

website 1:
http://www.uni-erlangen.de/infocenter/jobs/professoren/Three-Professorships-faculty-of-engineering.shtml

website 2: http://www.audiolabs-erlangen.com


Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

The Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and the
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft with its Institute for Integrated Circuits
jointly operate the 'International Audio Laboratories Erlangen', which
conduct both fundamental and applied research on novel audio technology.
This involves a close and long-term collaboration between both
institutions stipulated by contract. Eventually, more than 50 scientists
will work in this internationally unique research facility.

The Faculty of Engineering invites applications for the following three
professorships to be filled at the Department of Electrical,
Electronics, and Communication Engineering:

W 3-Professorship in Semantic Audio Processing (tenured)

The successful applicant will be expected to represent the field of
semantic processing of audio signals both in research and teaching.
Special focus should be on intelligent and object-oriented analysis,
semantic processing, and respective synthesis of complex audio signal
mixtures.

W 2-Professorship in Psychoacoustics (limited to 5 years)

The successful applicant will be expected to represent the field of
psychoacoustic modelling of human auditory perception and its cognitive
aspects both in research and teaching. Focus areas can be spatial
auditory attributes, computational auditory scene analysis, or
subjective signal quality, as it is relevant for perceptually motivated
audio signal processing and coding.

W 2-Professorship in Speech Coding (limited to 5 years)

The successful applicant will be expected to represent the field of
speech coding both in research and teaching. Special focus should be on
modern methods for low bit-rate combined speech and audio coding, speech
coding based on analysis-by-synthesis, and speech transformation.


Qualifications include university graduate and doctoral degrees, good
teaching skills, and a habilitation or equivalent other qualification,
which may have been gained outside the University or within a
'Juniorprofessur'.

At the time of appointment the candidate must not exceed 52 years of
age. The Ministry for Science, Research and Art, with approval by the
Ministry of Finance, may grant exemptions to this rule. The appointment
will be made by the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. This appointment
will be made by the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.

The University of Erlangen-Nürnberg is committed to a profamily policy
and an equal opportunity employer. We strongly encourage women to apply
in an effort to increase a female representation in research and teaching.

The University of Erlangen-Nürnberg pursues a policy of intensive study
support of its students and expects therefore that its teaching staff
maintain a substantial student contact time by being present at the
university.

All other qualifications being equal handicapped persons will be given
priority.

Application documents (curriculum vitae, photograph, list of
publications and teaching activities, and certified copies of degree
certificates but no publications) must be sent not later than July 30,
2011 to: Dekan der Technischen Fakultät der Universität
Erlangen-Nürnberg, Martensstraße 5a, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.

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Un poste de professeur 27 (voir fiche de poste ci-après) sera à pourvoir à
l'Université d'Angers (LERIA et département d'informatique de l'UFR
Sciences) lors d'un recrutement au fil de l'eau pour une prise de fonction
prévue au 1 novembre 2011.

Le calendrier provisoire du concours est le suivant :

- 07/07/2011 au 18/08/2011 : Ouverture de la campagne et candidatures
- 12/09/2011 au 29/09/2011 : Travaux du comité de sélection
- 07/10/2011 au 14/10/2011 : V½ux des candidats
- 17/10/2011 : Publication des résultats sur GALAXIE
- 01/11/2011 : Prise de fonction

Le recrutement étant totalement ouvert, les personnes intéressées peuvent
dès à présent prendre contact.

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title:  

Description: Several funded Ms/Phd positions are available at the Speech Lab

of Istanbul, Turkey (www.ozyegin.edu.tr). Successful researchers will also

potentially be offered consultant and contractor positions at a local speech

recognition company.

Qualifications

Candidates should ideally have a BS, Master or equivalent degree in

engineering or computer science. Candidates with a math or physics

degree and excellent programming skills may apply as well. Either a strong

mathematical and statistical background or a strong background in

programming (C++, Matlab, Python, Java) is required. Having good programming

skills and math skills is a big plus. Previous experience in speech recognition/synthesis,

statistical signal processing or machine learning is an asset.

Key words: speech recognition, speech synthesis, speaker verification, machine learning, data mining

Latest application date: 1/1/2012

Financing: available

Type of Position: scholarship. successful researchers will also potentially be offered consultant

and contractor positions at a local speech recognition company.

Source of Funding: EU and national funds

International travel: funding available

Duration of the Project : 2-4 years

Contact: cenk.demiroglu@ozyegin.edu.tr

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Programming position

ELDA offers a position for its Language Resource Production and Evaluation activities working in the framework of European projects.
The position is related to the development of web-service architectures for the automatic production and distribution of language resources. The candidate may also be involved in the creation of LR repositories, NLP applications development and/or evaluation, etc.

Profile:
- Degree or MSc in computer science, computational linguistics, natural language processing or similar fields
- Good programming skills in Python
- Good knowledge of Django and database management (MySQL)
- Good knowledge of Linux and open source software
- Experience and/or knowledge of web services
- Proficiency in French and English
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team, in particular to collaborate with members of a multidisciplinary and multilingual team
- Programming skills in PHP, Perl, C++ or Java are a plus
- Experience and/or knowledge on NLP is a plus

Salary: Commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Applications will be considered until the position is filled. The position is based in Paris, France and candidates should have the citizenship (or residency papers) of a European Union country.

Applicants should send (preferably in PDF format and via email) a cover letter addressing the points listed above together with a curriculum vitae to:

Olivier HAMON                                         
ELRA / ELDA                                         
55-57, rue Brillat Savarin                                     
75013 Paris FRANCE
Fax : +33 1 43 13 33 30
Email : hamon@elda.org

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The UK Economic and Social Research Council funded Intonational Variation in Arabic project is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Arabic phonetics and phonology. Application information is available here: http://bit.ly/q1fkKl.

The closing date for applications is August 11th and we plan to interview on August 26th. Information about the Intonational Variation in Arabic project is available here: www.york.ac.uk/res/ivar/  

I would be very grateful if you would forward this information to any students or colleagues who might wish to apply.

Best regards,

Sam Hellmuth

---------------------------------------------------
Dr Sam Hellmuth

Department of Language & Linguistic Science
University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD
email: sam.hellmuth@york.ac.uk
tel: 01904 322657  fax: 01904 322673

Times Higher Education University of the Year 2010

Intonational Variation in Arabic: www.york.ac.uk/res/ivar/    

http://www.york.ac.uk/language/staff/academic-research/sam-hellmuth/

Email disclaimer: http://www.york.ac.uk/docs/disclaimer/email.htm

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Postdoctoral Research Scientist Position open at Columbia University in Spoken Dialogue Systems Position:

Research and prototype development of a Spoken Dialogue System Project Description: The Spoken and Natural Language Processing groups at Columbia University in New York City have an opening for a computational linguist with expertise in research in and implementation of Spoken Dialogue Systems, with experience in Natural Language Generation. Some familiarity with multilingual processing is a plus. The Spoken Language Processing and Natural Language Processing groups are collaborating on a large DARPA project to develop state-of-the-art Spoken Dialogue Systems. We will experiment with developing new confidence metrics for guiding confirmation strategies, strategies for clarification sub-dialogues, new types of reference generation, and combining prosody and text to produce effective system prompts. The Speech Group and the NLP Group at Columbia have years of expertise in Natural Language Generation, Spoken Dialogue Systems, prosody, and multilingual processing and work in close collaboration with Research Scientists at the Columbia Center for Computational Learning Systems, who will also participate in this project. The successful candidate will be expected to play a major role in prototyping two Spoken Dialogue Systems to be built during different phases of the project and transferring these to a small team of developers who will create the final systems. One system will perform simple interactions with a robot, and the other will support dialogue in translation. The candidate will also play a major role in the research undertaken with these systems. The position is available for an initial period of two years with possible extension for 3 additional years, depending upon renewal of funding. Qualified applicants should have: • A PhD or equivalent to U.S. PhD in computational linguistics or spoken language processing • Several years’ experience with building spoken dialog systems and/or natural language generation systems • Familiarity with multilingual systems • Good implementational skills (Java, Python and/or C++) • Good English writing skills • The ability to work both independently and in a team in a multidisciplinary environment Conditions of Employment: the position is available from September/October 2011 or until filled Please address questions about the position and send your application and most current CV (and ask for 3 reference letters to be sent) in email to: Julia Hirschberg Department of Computer Science Columbia University julia@cs.columbia.edu Columbia is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.

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Le LIMSI (Laboratoire d'Informatique pour la Mécanique et les Sciences de l'Ingénieur) à Orsay ouvre deux postes de thèse de doctorat :

- Un poste sur la 'Caractérisation et reproduction de la personnalité vocale d’un acteur'

- un poste sur la 'Synthèse de parole en  temps-réel pour la production d’une personnalité vocale'

Se référer aux sujets de thèse en pièces jointes pour plus de détails.


Cordialement
Christophe d'Alessandro &  Albert Rilliard

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POSTDOCTORAL POSITION AT LIMSI-CNRS

   Topic: New methods for learning Named Entity Recognition systems
   in a multilingual context.

The development of Natural Language Processing systems is impeded by
the absence of annotated data in some languages.  A possible solution
consists in transferring analyses available in one language to
comparable texts in another language.  This makes it possible to train
new systems based on these new annotations.

The proposed project will tackle more specifically the case of Named
Entity Recognition in a context where a 'synchronous comparable
corpus' (or 'noisy parallel corpus') is available: AFP news in French,
English, Spanish (German, Portuguese and Arabic are also available).

The goal is to take advantage of the parallelism of news written in
multiple languages to help recognize named entities:

- in a language for which a Named Entity Recognition system is
  already available, strengthen recognition through entities found in
  parallel articles in other languages;

- in a (target) language for which no NER system is available,
  transfer into that language the analyses obtained in a (source)
  language for which a NER system is available, and use them to train
  a system in that (target) language.

LIMSI has:

- NER systems for French, English and Spanish (with varying levels of
  performance);

- methods for detecting translation relations among news articles.

This work takes place in the context of the EDyLex project, funded by
the French National Research Agency, whose goal is to process unknown
words in texts (http://sites.google.com/site/projetedylex/).  The work
of the successful candidate will be focused on the detection and
categorization of named entities in a multilingual context.

The work will be performed at LIMSI-CNRS in Orsay
(http://www.limsi.fr/) on the campus of University Paris-South.  Two
teams at LIMSI are involved in the project: ILES (written and signed
language processing) and TLP (spoken language processing).


QUALIFICATIONS AND POSITION

The successful candidate will have a track record of Machine Learning
for Natural Language Processing research.  A strong preference will be
given to those candidates with experience in Named Entity Recognition
or Speech Language Understanding.  Fluency in one or more languages of
the project beyond English is mandatory.  Applicants should have
received (by the starting date) a PhD in Machine Learning,
Computational Linguistics or related areas.

This position is for 12 months and may begin as early as Oct 1st,
2011, or soon thereafter.  Salary follows CNRS scales and depends on
the candidate's experience (the minimum monthly net salary is about
2,000 €).

To apply, please send a cover letter, describing how the applicant's
knowledge and research background will contribute to the project, a
CV, and the names and contact information of two referees to:

 Pierre Zweigenbaum (pz@limsi.fr) and Sophie Rosset (rosset@limsi.fr)

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Research Associate/Assistant Vacancies in Cambridge University Dialogue Systems Group

Applications are invited for research positions in statistical dialogue management, automatic speech recognition and statistical speech synthesis.  

The successful applicants will join a small team working on various aspects of spoken interaction with machines including:

• statistical dialogue management using dynamic Bayesian Networks
• fast adaptation and noise robust real time speech recognition
• contextually aware expressive statistical speech synthesis
• automatic evaluation of non-native speaking skills

Candidates should have, or expect to shortly receive, a PhD or have comparable research experience in one or more of the above areas.   Salaries will be in the range £27428 to £35788 depending on qualifications and experience, and the starting date is flexible.

This is an exciting opportunity to join one of the leading groups in statistical speech and language processing.  Cambridge provides excellent research facilities and there are extensive opportunities for collaboration, visits and attending conferences.  

Further information on the work of the Dialogue Systems Group and more details on these vacancies can be found at:

http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/research/dialogue/jobs.html

Prospective candidates should send their CV as soon as possible to Dr Kai Yu or Prof Steve Young ({ky219,mailto:sjy11%7D@cam.ac.uk).

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Research Scientist, ASR

Job ID: 2011-6557
Job Location: US-CA-Palo Alto
Contact:  jian.cheng@pearsonkt.com or gwen.simpson@pearson.com

Website:  pearson.careers.com

Overview:

Pearson has one defining goal: to help people progress in their lives through learning. We champion innovation and we invest in models for education that deliver on our promise for effective, accessible, and personal learning from early literacy, college and career readiness to professional education, through data informed instruction and inventive applications for mobile and digital learning.

Pearson, the world's leading learning company, has global-reach and market leading businesses in education, business, and consumer publishing and is listed on the London and New York stock exchanges (UK: PSON; NYSE: PSO). For more information, visit www.pearson.com.

Pearson is an Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/V/D, and a member of E-Verify.

Responsible for advancing the state of the company's (www.pearsonkt.com) automated grading technology (Versant Grading System)  while working with the sales, marketing and test development teams to solve practical problems from the field. The position demands a person who has broad interests and is motivated to design and implement improvements to the company’s system. Opportunities for further research in applicable areas are available.

The day-to-day responsibilities of this role:
• The whole R&D cycle (building language models, training acoustic models, building statistical models for measuring the performance, etc.) for automated grading of different test system.
• Design new algorithms for different purpose (such as improving the grading performance).
• Do data analysis for different requirements.
• Write different scripts and tools to support the sales, marketing and test development teams.
• Maintain grading system.

Qualifications:

Personality attributes/skills required:
• Knowledge of speech recognition, probabilistic systems, statistical models.
• Strong background in statistical modeling and machine learning.
• Extensive experience programming in C/C++.
• Proficiency with SQL, Perl and Matlab.
• Demonstrate a willingness to learn and apply a wide range of technologies
• Experience with linguistic and statistical analysis of natural language would be highly desirable.
• Ph.D. or ABD (with graduation in 2011) in EE, CS or relevant areas with 0-2 yrs working experience
• Experience in designing and running ASR experiments using HTK a plus
• Strong written and verbal communication skills

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Research Scientist, ASR

Job ID: 2011-6557
Job Location: US-CA-Palo Alto
Contact:  jian.cheng@pearsonkt.com or gwen.simpson@pearson.com

Website:  pearson.careers.com

Overview:

Pearson has one defining goal: to help people progress in their lives through learning. We champion innovation and we invest in models for education that deliver on our promise for effective, accessible, and personal learning from early literacy, college and career readiness to professional education, through data informed instruction and inventive applications for mobile and digital learning.

Pearson, the world's leading learning company, has global-reach and market leading businesses in education, business, and consumer publishing and is listed on the London and New York stock exchanges (UK: PSON; NYSE: PSO). For more information, visit www.pearson.com.

Pearson is an Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/V/D, and a member of E-Verify.

Responsible for advancing the state of the company's (www.pearsonkt.com) automated grading technology (Versant Grading System)  while working with the sales, marketing and test development teams to solve practical problems from the field. The position demands a person who has broad interests and is motivated to design and implement improvements to the company’s system. Opportunities for further research in applicable areas are available.

The day-to-day responsibilities of this role:
• The whole R&D cycle (building language models, training acoustic models, building statistical models for measuring the performance, etc.) for automated grading of different test system.
• Design new algorithms for different purpose (such as improving the grading performance).
• Do data analysis for different requirements.
• Write different scripts and tools to support the sales, marketing and test development teams.
• Maintain grading system.

Qualifications:

Personality attributes/skills required:
• Knowledge of speech recognition, probabilistic systems, statistical models.
• Strong background in statistical modeling and machine learning.
• Extensive experience programming in C/C++.
• Proficiency with SQL, Perl and Matlab.
• Demonstrate a willingness to learn and apply a wide range of technologies
• Experience with linguistic and statistical analysis of natural language would be highly desirable.
• Ph.D. or ABD (with graduation in 2011) in EE, CS or relevant areas with 0-2 yrs working experience
• Experience in designing and running ASR experiments using HTK a plus
• Strong written and verbal communication skills

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Postdoc position in Speech Recognition, Adaptation, Retrieval and Translation In Aalto University School of Science (previously known as Helsinki University of Technology) in Department of Information and Computer Science.

 http://research.ics.tkk.fi/speech/jobs11.shtml We are looking for a postdoc to join our research group working on machine learning and probabilistic modeling in speech recognition, adaptation, retrieval and translation. Speech recognition group (led by Mikko Kurimo) belongs to the national Center of Excellence in Adaptive Informatics (by prof Oja, 2006-2011) and Computational Inference (by prof Oja, 2012-2017) which are the successors to the Neural Networks Research Centre (by prof Kohonen, 1995-2005). We are happy to consider outstanding candidates interested in any of our research themes, for example: • large-vocabulary speech recognition • acoustic and language model adaptation • speech recognition in noisy environments • speech retrieval and translation based on unsupervised morpheme models • speech recognition in multimodal and multilingual interfaces and information retrieval • speech recognition in indexing streaming audio and video Postdoc: 1 year + extension possibilities. Starting date: As soon as possible. Position requires a relevant doctoral degree in CS or EE, skills for doing excellent research in a group, and outstanding research experience in any of the research themes mentioned above. The candidate is expected to perform high-quality research, and assist in supervising PhD students. In Helsinki you will join the innovative international computational data analysis and ICT community. Among European cities, Helsinki is special in being clean, safe, liberal, Scandinavian, and close to nature, in short, having a high standard of living. English is spoken everywhere. See. e.g. Visit Finland. Please attach a CV including a list of publications and email addresses of 2-3 people willing to give more information. Include a brief description of research interests and send the application by email to Mikko Kurimo, Mikko.Kurimo at tkk.fi Adaptive Informatics Research Centre, Department of Information and Computer Science, Aalto University School of Science

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PhD Scholarship in Human and Automatic Speaker Characterisation
Faculty of Information Sciences and Engineering, University of Canberra

A PhD Scholarship is offered for a maximum of 3 years in the area of speaker recognition and characterisation. The value of the stipend in 2011 is A$31,860 per annum, which corresponds to the current base level of the Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) plus a top-up of A$9,000 per annum. In the following years the stipend will be indexed to the base level of the APA plus the A$9,000 top-up. The award is tax-free in Australia.

Applications close 15 September 2011

The University of Canberra, the Technical University of Berlin and Deutsche Telekom AG are undertaking a joint research project in the field of speaker recognition and speaker characterisation. The project will evaluate both human and automatic speaker recognition and speaker characterisation performance over different channels, and it will provide a framework of speech quality factors for high-quality voice services.

The successful candidate will have a good honours degree or equivalent with research experience in speech or speaker recognition, digital signal processing and pattern recognition. He or she will conduct research towards the aims of the project under the supervision of Prof. Michael Wagner of the University of Canberra and Prof. Sebastian Möller of the Technical University of Berlin. The position is based at the University of Canberra, but will involve a substantial period, or periods, of time at the Technical University of Berlin. The continuation of the Scholarship is contingent upon satisfactory progress according to the rules for higher-degree-by-research (HDR) students at the University of Canberra and is limited to three years.

At the University of Canberra, the candidate  will be working within the Biometrics Research Group (formerly the National Centre for Biometric Studies), a research group working on biometric technology, applied to a range of authentication and forensic applications and including speech and image processing.   At TU Berlin, the candidate will be hosted at the Quality and Usability Lab (www.qu.tu-berlin.de), which is part of Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, and will be integrated into a highly vibrant multidisciplinary research group dealing with all aspects of human-machine interaction.

General information for prospective HDR students at the University of Canberra can be found at www.canberra.edu.au, and further information may be obtained from michael.wagner@canberra.edu.au and from sebastian.moeller@telekom.de. Both Prof. Wagner and Prof. Möller will also be available for direct contact at Interspeech 2011 in Florence.

Applications including a CV are to be sent by email to michael.wagner@canberra.edu.au.

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Postdoc position: Articulatory copy synthesis at LORIA (Nancy, France).

One year, start between October and December 2011 at LORIA (Nancy, France). Description The objective is to synthesize speech from dynamic and static articulatory data of the vocal tract. Several kinds of data are available: X-ray films recorded in the eighties, static MRI data of the vocal tract, EMA data (electromagnetography, i.e. positions of sensors glued onto speech articulators acquired at a frame rate of 200 Hz) and ultrasound images of the tongue registered with respect to the speaker’s head. We already built an adaptable articulatory model, which describes the 2D geometry of the vocal tract from the larynx to the lips. The area function of the vocal tract can be derived easily from this model. We thus plan to animate this model from EMA or ultrasound data. The second part of the postdoc deals with the connection between the dynamics of the vocal tract shape provided by the articulatory model and the acoustic simulation. The synthesizer developed by S. Maeda can generate any speech sound, i.e. consonants and vowels, but the difficulty is to pilot the transitions between vowels and consonants relevantly to avoid any spurious artifact. Expected skills Medical imaging, signal processing, acoustics, speech processing Contact: Yves.Laprie@loria.fr

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Aalto University (http://www.aalto.fi/en/) is a new multidisciplinary university, where science and art meet technology and business. The University is located in Espoo and Helsinki in Finland. The new university's ambitious goal is to rank among the top universities in the world in its areas of specialization.

Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering invites applications for:

TENURE TRACK OR TENURED POSITION IN SPEECH AND LANGUAGE PROCESSING, which can be filled on any level from assistant professor to tenured professor

The tenure track is open to talented individuals who have excellent potential for a scientific career. On the basis of their experience and competence, applicants will be placed on any of the four levels of the tenure track system: Assistant Professor (1), Assistant Professor (2), Associate Professor, or Full Professor. The candidates for the two first-mentioned levels are appointed for a fixed term, while the candidates for Associate Professor positions are appointed either permanently or for a fixed term. Full Professor positions are permanent.

The position is located at the Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics (http://spa.tkk.fi/en/index/). The Department puts special emphasis on scientific publications in high-impact journals combined with industrial collaboration within ICT sector. The industrial relevance of the Department’s research is very high and the research groups have close cooperation with several ICT and other high-tech companies.

In this call, the Department is seeking to hire highly qualified individuals for the position. The candidates should provide world class competence in speech and language processing or closely related fields supporting and complementing the present strong focus areas of the Department’s research and teaching. All qualified candidates in the study area are encouraged to apply.

The dead line of the applications is October 31, 2011. Application call and instruction are available here:

http://www.aalto.fi/en/current/jobs/professors/

For additional information, please contact Vice Head of the Department, Professor Paavo Alku (Paavo.Alku@aalto.fi).

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Post Doctoral Position Available at UCLA

The UCLA Voice Perception Laboratory (the Bureau of Glottal Affairs) has an opening for a post-doctoral fellow, beginning no sooner than January, 2012.  Initial appointment will be for one year, with renewal for a second year contingent on performance.  The ideal candidate will have a strong interest in the empirical study of voice quality and its relationship to voice production and acoustics, and will enjoy the process of experimentation.  Completion of the PhD degree prior to assuming the position is required.

The primary goal of the project supporting this position is to develop a psychoacoustic model of overall voice quality that can be linked theoretically and empirically to the physical changes in vocal fold vibration that cause perceived changes in quality.  This psychoacoustic model will specify a set of perceptually-important acoustic parameters that combine to replicate and thereby quantify the overall, integral quality of a voice.  We will assess the relationship between changes in the values of model parameters and changes in the perceived extent to which a voice deviates from normal quality.  This will provide an explanatory model specifying how acoustic parameters combine and interact perceptually to determine the location of any voice sample along a continuum from “better” to “worse.”  Finally, we will investigate the link between perceptually-important spectral changes and the associated alterations in glottal configuration, in order to identify targets for remediation that have the highest likelihood of producing vocal improvement during treatment. 

Although the primary focus of the position is voice perception, the voice group at UCLA is highly interdisciplinary, and includes experts in linguistics and cognitive science, speech-language pathology, otolaryngology, mechanical and electrical engineering, and physics.  In addition to perceptual research, facilities are available for high-speed imaging, physical and computational modeling, tissue engineering, in vivo and ex vivo modeling, and aeroacoustic studies, and collaborative interdisciplinary research is encouraged.  Fellows may reserve up to 25% of their time to develop their own projects in these other areas.

Interested candidates should contact Jody Kreiman by email at jkreiman@ucla.edu.

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School of Computing, University of Eastern Finland
P.O.Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland
Tel +358-13-251 7928 (office), Fax +358-13-251 7955

JOENSUU, FINLAND: One postdoctoral researcher and one PhD position in speech technology

University of Eastern Finland (UEF) is a new university merged from the universities of Joensuu and Kuopio, with 15000 students and 2800 employees (http://www.uef.fi/uef/english). School of Computing (SoC) is one of the biggest departments in UEF, with about 120 employees in two campuses. There are three main research directions in the department, (1) intelligent media computing, (2) software engineering and (3) educational technology. The positions announced take place in Joensuu campus, in the Speech and Image Processing Unit (SIPU) research group (http://cs.joensuu.fi/sipu/). Current research topics of the group include speech technology (especially speaker recognition), clustering methods and mobile navigation systems. The SIPU group announces

ONE POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER AND ONE PHD POSITION IN SPEECH TECHNOLOGY

Both positions are filled in a 4-year Academy of Finland project 'Reliable speaker recognition and modification', starting January 2012. The context of the project is studying interplay of two spoken language technologies, speaker recognition and voice conversion. The main responsibility of the post-doctoral researcher is to establish and improve a state-of-the-art voice conversion framework and to integrate it with speaker recognition methods. In addition to research activities, the postdoc is expected to take part (10% to 20% of time) in supervising PhD and MSc students in related topics. The PhD candidate will work on either voice conversion, speaker recognition or both. There are no teaching duties.

Both candidates are expected to have a degree in spoken language technology, electrical engineering, computer science or closely related field. The candidates should be familiar with Unix/Linux tools and Matlab with excellent skills in signal processing or machine learning. Experience in either synthesis/conversion or recognition methods, participation to technology benchmarks (e.g. NIST evaluations or Blizzard challenge), knowledge of HTK, HTS and C/C++, and industrial experience are considered a plus.

The postdoctoral researcher position is filled for a period of 1 year (with option to extend). The duration of the PhD position is up to 4 years. The salary of the PhD student will be placed on levels 1-4 of the job requirement level chart for teaching and research personnel in the Salary System for Finnish Universities (1716 eur to 2359 eur/month before taxes). The salary of the post-doctoral researcher will follow default level 5 (2714 eur/month before taxes). In addition, the appointees will be paid an additional salary component based on their personal performance which can be a maximum of 46.3 per cent of the job requirement component. We will also cover at least one conference participation per year.

The application consisting of the following documents should be sent or delivered to the Registry Office of the University of Eastern Finland. Postal address: Itä-Suomen yliopisto, Kirjaamo, PL 111, 80101 Joensuu or Itä-Suomen yliopisto, Kirjaamo, PL 1627, 70211 Kuopio. Street address: Yliopistokatu 2 (Joensuu) and Yliopistonranta 1 E (Kuopio). Email: kirjaamo@uef.fi. The deadline for applications is Friday November 4, 2011 (at 3.00 pm Finland time). We cannot guarantee that applications sent after the deadline will be taken into account. The application should include at least:

o    A cover letter indicating the position to be applied and free-worded
    application, describing the special qualities of the applicant relevant
    to the applied position.
o    Full curriculum vitae (CV), including the list of publications (if any).
o    Copies of relevant diplomas and transcripts of academic records. The diplomas
    should be in English or Finnish, and the grading system should be described.
o    The names and contact information of at least two referees.

All enquiries related to the positions should be addressed to Dr. Tomi H. Kinnunen, tkinnu@cs.joensuu.fi or tomi.kinnunen@uef.fi, Tel. +358 13 251 7963,
www http://cs.joensuu.fi/pages/tkinnu/webpage/

This application can also be found at http://www.uef.fi/avoimet-tyopaikat

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