PhD position in Analysis and control techniques for spoken language applications (1 FTE)

The Cognitive Science & Artificial Intelligence department at Tilburg University invites applications for one fully-funded PhD position in the area of language and speech technologies. This position is embedded within the NWO-funded project “InDeep: Interpreting deep learning models for language, speech & music” in collaboration with several universities and companies in the Netherlands. The project consortium brings together a number of pioneering experts in the field of interpretability (https://interpretingdl.github.io) and aims at bridging the gap between the latest academic advances and societal/industrial users of deep learning models at large. 

The PhD candidate will work on a project on the development of analysis and control techniques for deep-learning based speech processing models, led by Dr. Grzegorz Chrupała.
The projects will combine ideas, methods and data from Speech Recognition, Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning. 

Project description: Speech processing is increasingly done via end-to-end rather than modular models: this makes is hard to understand what is causing the model’s decisions in general and specifically why it fails when it does. Given the opacity of such end-to-end models, it is desirable to develop and test methods for analyzing the intermediate representations they learn, and interpreting the decisions they make. The objective of this project is to develop and test methods for manipulating intermediate representations learned by end-to-end speech-understanding models in order to make it possible for users to debug them, to control them, and explain their output. The models of interest include, among others, automatic speech recognition, visually grounded models of spoken language and spoken language translation systems.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in computer science, speech and audio processing, computational linguistics, machine learning, or a related field. If you expect to obtain your degree before December 2022, you are also eligible.
• Knowledge of machine learning in general as well as practical experience with deep learning models and toolkits (e.g. Pytorch).
• Experience with speech processing is a strong plus.
• Excellent knowledge of English and good academic writing skills.

What we offer

• A full-time position.
• The selected candidate will start with a contract for one year. Upon a positive outcome of the first-year evaluation, the candidate will be offered an employment contract for the remaining three years.
• A minimum gross salary of € 2.443,- per month up to a maximum of € 3.122,- in the fourth year.
• A holiday allowance of 8% and an end-of-year bonus of 8.3% (annually).
• Researchers from outside the Netherlands may qualify for a tax-free allowance equal to 30% of their taxable salary (the 30% tax regulation). The University will apply for such an allowance on their behalf.
• Assistance in finding accommodation (for foreign employees).
• Benefits such as an options model for terms and conditions of employment and reimbursement of moving expenses, also including excellent technical infrastructure, savings schemes and excellent sport facilities. 

The collective labor agreement of the Dutch Universities applies.

Information and application
More detailed project information can be provided on request: please contact Grzegorz Chrupała (grzegorz@chrupala.me).

To apply, please submit:

• a motivation letter in which you describe why you want to do this research, and why you are the right person to do it; 
• a full curriculum vitae, demonstrating academic excellence, including publications (if applicable);
• academic transcripts of your Bachelor and Master’s degrees;
• a sample of writing, such as your Master’s thesis or a relevant paper;
• contact details of two academic referees.

The only way to apply is online. The position is open until filled. The starting date of this position is negotiable but preferably no later than September 1, 2022.