Disney Research - Open positions for postdoc candidates and internships for PhD students

Disney Research, Pittsburgh, is announcing several positions for outstanding postdoctoral candidates and internships for PhD students in areas related to speech technology, multimodal conversational systems, interactive robotics, child-robot interaction, human motion modelling, tele-presence, and wireless computing. Candidates should have experience in building interactive systems and the ability to build robust demonstrations.

Positions are available immediately, with flexible starting dates before the beginning of 2015. A detailed description of the positions and about Disney Research more generally is given below. Interested candidates should send an email with an up-to-date CV and any questions to drpjobs-sp@disneyresearch.com. Please make sure to use subject line: DRP-SP-2014.

Postdoctoral positions:

Postdoctoral positions are for 2 years. Candidates should have an outstanding research record, have published in top-tier journals and international conferences, and have shown impact on the research in their field. Candidates must have excellent command of English and a strong collaborative and team-oriented attitude. Postdoctoral positions are for one or more of the following areas:

• ·       Multimodal spoken dialogue systems
• ·       Adult- and Child-Robot Interaction
• ·       Sensor fusion and multimodal signal processing
• ·       Embodied conversational agents and language-based character interaction

All candidates should have excellent programming skills in scripting languages and in one or more object-oriented programming language. Preferred candidates will also have strong applied machine learning skills, and experience in data collection and experiment design with human subjects.

Internships for PhD students:

A number of internships are available for international PhD students in one of the following areas. The positions are full-time for 4-6 months available immediately. Candidates should be enrolled in a PhD program in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related discipline. Applicants must have at least one publication in a top-tier conference, have excellent written and oral communication skills, enthusiastic, self-motivated, and enjoy collaborative and team work.

We have opportunities for internships in a variety of fields including:

• ·       Nonverbal signal analysis and synthesis for human-like animated characters
• ·       Telepresence and Tele-Communication in human-humanoid interaction
• ·       Speech recognition applications for children
• ·       Multimodal and incremental dialogue systems
• ·       Kinematics, biomechanics, human motion modelling, and animatronics

Disney Research Labs (Pittsburgh, Boston, LA, and Zurich) provide a research foundation for the many units within the Walt Disney Company. Including Walt Disney Feature Animation, Walt Disney Imagineering, Parks & Resorts, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney Interactive Media Group, ESPN, and Pixar Animation Studios.

Disney Research combines the best of academia and industry: we work on a broad range of commercially important challenges, we view publication as a principal mechanism for quality control, we encourage and help with the engagement with the global research community, and our research has applications that are experienced by millions of people.

Disney Research Pittsburgh is made of a group of a world-leading researchers working on a very wide range of interactive technologies. The lab is co-located with Carnegie Mellon University under the direction of Prof. Jessica Hodgins. Members of DRP are encouraged to interact with the established research community at CMU and with the business units in Los Angeles and Florida. As an active member of the research community we support and assist with publications at top venues.

Disney Research provides very competitive compensations, benefits, and relocation help.

The Walt Disney Company is an Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity Employer and encourages applications from members of under-represented groups.

http://www.disneyresearch.com