About the position

Position as PhD Research Fellow in Natural Language Processing available in the Language Technology Group (LTG) within the Section for Machine Learning at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo (UiO), Norway.

The fellowship period is for 3 years.

No one can be appointed for more than one PhD Research Fellowship period at the University of Oslo.

Job description

While located within the Language Technology Group at the University of Oslo, the position is financed by the Norwegian Research Center for AI Innovation (NorwAI) coordinated by NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology). Funded by the Research Council of Norway through their scheme for establishing Centers for Research-based Innovation, the NorwAI center aims to develop cutting-edge AI in close collaboration with industry partners.

This specific PhD project will target entity detection and sentiment analysis on the basis of news texts. The project will consider ways to aggregate sentiment analysis over time for detected entities (e.g. companies, organizations, persons, etc.) across mentions and documents. While the work will initially focus on English, it will increasingly also focus on Norwegian as annotated data becomes available.

The position is located within the Language Technology Group (LTG) at Department of Informatics, UiO. LTG conducts research on a range of NLP topics like semantic parsing, distributional semantics, sentiment analysis and large-scale language modeling. While the research profile of the group is heavily machine-learning oriented, our projects typically combine data-driven approaches with an interest for linguistic analysis and insight. The group has access to excellent HPC infrastructure.

Qualification requirements

The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences has a strategic ambition to be among Europe’s leading communities for research, education and innovation. Candidates for these fellowships will be selected in accordance with this, and expected to be in the upper segment of their class with respect to academic credentials.

Required qualifications

• Applicants must hold a Master’s degree or equivalent in Natural Language Processing, or in Computer Science with a specialization in NLP.
• Foreign completed degree (M.Sc.-level) corresponding to a minimum of four years in the Norwegian educational system.
• Previous experience with machine learning-based approaches to NLP is required.
• The candidate must be able to demonstrate broad knowledge of core NLP tasks, like tagging, parsing, named entity recognition, etc.

Desirable qualifications:

• Previous experience with neural approaches in particular will be an advantage.
• Implementation experience and programming skills will also be given weight.
• Working knowledge of Norwegian (or some other Scandinavian language) is recommended, as the project will mainly work on Norwegian text. Though not required, prior working knowledge of Norwegian (or some other Scandinavian language) will be an advantage, as the project will mainly target Norwegian text

Grade requirements:

The norm is as follows:

• the average grade point for courses included in the Bachelor’s degree must be C or better in the Norwegian educational system
• the average grade point for courses included in the Master’s degree must be B or better in the Norwegian educational system
• the Master’s thesis must have the grade B or better in the Norwegian educational system
• Fluent oral and written communication skills in English
• English requirements for applicants from outside of EU/ EEA countries

The purpose of the fellowship is research training leading to the successful completion of a PhD degree.

The fellowship requires admission to the PhD programme at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. The application to the PhD programme must be submitted to the department no later than two months after taking up the position. For more information see:

http://www.uio.no/english/research/phd/

http://www.mn.uio.no/english/research/phd/

We offer

• Salary NOK 482 200 – 526 000 per annum depending on qualifications and seniority as PhD Research Fellow (position code 1017)
• Attractive welfare benefits and a generous pension agreement
• Vibrant international academic environment
• A stimulating, flexible, and creative work environment in a research group with strong links both within academia and to industry
• Career development programmes
• Oslo’s family-friendly surroundings with their rich opportunities for culture and outdoor activities

How to apply

The application must include:

• Cover letter - statement of motivation and research interests
• CV (summarizing education, positions and academic work - scientific publications)
• Copies of the original Bachelor and Master’s degree diploma and transcripts of records and letters of recommendation
• Documentation of English proficiency
• List of publications and academic work that the applicant wishes to be considered by the evaluation committee
• List of reference persons: 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and phone number)

The application with attachments must be delivered in our electronic recruiting system, please follow the link “Apply for this job”. Foreign applicants are advised to attach an explanation of their University's grading system. Please note that all documents should be in English (or a Scandinavian language).

Shortlisted applicants will be called in for an interview.

Formal regulations

Please see the guidelines and regulations for appointments to Research Fellowships at the University of Oslo.

No one can be appointed for more than one PhD Research Fellowship period at the University of Oslo.

According to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure.

The University of Oslo has an agreement for all employees, aiming to secure rights to research results etc.

The University of Oslo aims to achieve a balanced gender composition in the workforce and to recruit people with ethnic minority backgrounds.

Contact information

For enquiries about this position please contact:

• Associate Professor Erik Velldal, e-mail: erikve@ifi.uio.no

For questions regarding the recruitment system, please contact HR Adviser Torunn Standal Guttormsen, phone:+47 22854272,e-mail: t.s.guttormsen@mn.uio.no.

Apply for this job