Job description

Position as Postdoctoral Research Fellow available at the Department of Informatics.

No one can be appointed for more than one Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Oslo. Starting date subject to discussion, but no later than February 1, 2023.

The fellowship is a full-time position with a fixed-term period of three (3) years.

Position description

This position is a part of a new EU Horizon project titled “High-Performance Language Technologies” (HPLT). HPLT is a collaboration between 5 universities (Oslo, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Prague and Turku), 2 high-performance computing centers (Uninett Sigma2 in Norway and Cesnet in the Czech Republic), and one Spanish company (Prompsit) on the development of language and translation models at scale. The project aims at continuous integration of pre-trained language models and data, resulting in free downloadable high-quality models for all official European Union languages and beyond. With a strong focus on multi-linguality, reproducibility, openness and scale, HPLT will allow easy discovery and access to corpora, models and code.

We are looking for a postdoctoral fellow interested in processing and maintaining very large troves of natural language data (in particular, significant parts of the Internet Archive). These corpora and datasets will be used for training, updating, evaluating and publicly serving state-of-the-art language models for European languages (both monolingual and multilingual). This includes developing and refining automated replicable software installations across high-performance computing (HPC) systems, notably the new LUMI European pre-exascale supercomputer

Development plan:

The main purpose of a postdoctoral fellowship is to provide the candidates with enhanced skills to pursue a scientific top position within or beyond academia. To promote a strategic career path, all postdoctoral research fellows are required to submit a professional development plan no later than one month after commencement of the postdoctoral period.

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.

• Applicants must hold a degree equivalent to a Norwegian doctoral degree in Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, or Computer Science with a suitable specialization. Candidates whose doctoral thesis has been submitted for evaluation by the closing date are encouraged to apply. Only applicants with an approved doctoral thesis and public defense prior to the start date will be eligible for appointment.
• Fluent oral and written communication skills in English

Preferable qualifications:

• Good understanding of modern approaches to language modeling, based on deep artificial neural networks
• Fluency in frameworks like PyTorch and TensorFlow
• Some prior experience with basic large-scale computing concepts, ideally in an HPC context.
• Publication track on relevant topics in top-tier NLP venues is a large plus

Personal skills

• Ability to work in a large geographically-distributed team
• Passion for disseminating academic knowledge and results among non-academic audience

We offer

• Salary NOK 544 400 – 626 300 per year depending on qualifications in position as Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (position code 1352)
• Attractive welfare benefits and a generous pension agreement
• Professionally stimulating working environment
• Vibrant international academic environment
• Postdoctoral 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, summarizing scientific work and research interest)
• CV (summarizing education, positions, pedagogical experience, administrative experience and other qualifying activity)
• Copies of educational certificates, academic transcript of records
• Letters of recommendation
• A complete list of publications and up to 5 academic works that the applicant wishes to be considered by the evaluation committee
• Names and contact details of 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and telephone 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).

In assessing the applications, special emphasis will be placed on the documented, academic qualifications, the project description (whenever this is required in the call for applicants), and the quality of the project as well as the candidates motivation and personal suitability.

Interviews with the best qualified candidates will be arranged. The successful candidate will join the HPLT project team and enjoy an active role in the consortium.

Formal regulations

Please see the guidelines and regulations for appointments to Postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Oslo.

No one can be appointed for more than one Postdoctoral Fellow period at the University of Oslo.

If an applicant has applied for and been granted funding for a fulltime research stay abroad while being employed as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, the employment will be prolonged with the equivalent time as the research stay, but for no longer than of twelve months ( thus extending the employment to a maximum of four years).

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.

Inclusion and diversity are a strength. The University of Oslo has a personnel policy objective of achieving a balanced gender composition. Furthermore, we want employees with diverse professional expertise, life experience and perspectives.

If there are qualified applicants with disabilities, employment gaps or immigrant background, we will invite at least one applicant from each of these categories to an interview.

Contact information

For further information please contact:

• Andrey Kutuzov, postdoctoral fellow at the Language Technology Group, phone: +47 40648218, e-mail: andreku@ifi.uio.no or
  
• Stephan Oepen, Professor, Head of the Department of Informatics, phone: +47-4546 6632, e-mail: oe@ifi.uio.no

For questions regarding the recruitment system, please contact HR Adviser Therese Ringvold, phone: +47 22856106, e-mail: therese.ringvold@mn.uio.no

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