Postdoc and PhD positions in natural language generation and planning

[Alexander Koller]

Postdoc and PhD positions in natural language generation and planning
Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

We invite applications for two research positions (for up to 5 years)
in natural language generation and planning -- one post-doc and one
PhD student.  The selected candidates will work on the generation of
natural-language instructions in a virtual 3D environment.  They will
build upon ideas from AI planning to model situated instruction-giving
in a linguistically and formally clean way, implement an
instruction-giving system using efficient planning algorithms, and
then enter this system into the GIVE Challenge ("Generating
Instructions in Virtual Environments"; www.give-challenge.org), where
it will be evaluated over the Internet.

This research will be carried out in the context of the newly
established junior research group "Efficient algorithms in
computational linguistics", which is part of the Cluster of Excellence
"Multimodal Computing and Interaction" at Saarland University in
Saarbrücken, Germany.  Saarland University is one of the major centers
for computational linguistics worldwide, and with the recent creation
of the cluster of excellence (20 new independent junior research
groups in various fields of computer science and computational
linguistics) is set to become an even more dynamic research
environment.  Researchers come from all over the world, and the
research language is English.

The post-doc should have (or be about to finish) a PhD in
computational linguistics, computer science, linguistics, or a related
field.  He or she should be an expert in (and ideally, have published
on) one or more of the following areas: natural language generation;
planning or plan recognition; situated communication; discourse.  The
PhD student should have an interest in one or more of these areas and
an excellent university degree in a relevant subject.  Both
researchers will have the opportunity to participate in teaching and
the supervision of student research assistants, as well as the
organization of the GIVE Challenge.  Applicants are expected to be
comfortable with interdisciplinary collaborations.

Please send your application (CV, list of publications, and 2-3
letters of reference) as a PDF file to Alexander Koller at
koller at coli.uni-saarland.de by September 15, 2008.  The positions will
remain open until filled, so later applications may still be
considered.  Saarland University wishes to increase the proportion of
women in research and strongly encourages qualified female candidates
to apply.  Priority will be given to handicapped candidates with
equivalent qualifications.

We also encourage you to inquire about further details from:

Dr. Alexander Koller
Exzellenzcluster / FR 4.7 Computerlinguistik
Saarland University
Postfach 151150, 66041 Saarbrücken
Germany

http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~koller/
koller at coli.uni-saarland.de
phone: +49 681 302 70040