Monday, June 26, 2017

Postdoctoral position in Natural Language processing for the Digital Humanities

University of Copenhagen

The Department of Nordic Research, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Denmark, invites applications for a 2-year postdoctoral position in Natural Language Processing for the Digital Humanities to be filled by 1 November 2017 or as soon as possible thereafter.  
 
The Department of Nordic Research, with a total number of staff approximating 100, comprises four sections: the Arnamagnæan Institute, the Section for Danish Dialectology, the Section for Onomastics, and the Centre for Language Technology (CST). The department specialises in the fields of Early Scandinavian language and literature, manuscript studies, Danish dialectology and socio-linguistics, onomastics, runology, language technology and computational linguistics.  


 
The successful candidate will be attached to CST and will work for the cross-departmental and interdisciplinary research project Skrift og tekst i tid og rum (Script and text in time and space) funded by the Velux Foundations (see http://nfi.ku.dk/forskning/forskningsprojekter/skrift-og-tekst-i-tid-og-rum). CST conducts research in different areas of interest for language technology, such as natural language processing, language technology resources and the infrastructure around them, machine learning, and multimodal communication (see http://cst.ku.dk/english/forskning/). The Centre wants to strengthen its position in the area of Digital Humanities. It has a strong international profile, at the same time as pursuing the development of language technology methods and resources for the Danish language. The Centre has considerable experience managing international research projects, frequently attracts visiting researchers and has organised major conferences in the field. Together with the Department of Computer Science of the University of Copenhagen, it offers an international MSc programme in IT and Cognition.  
 
The project  
Skrift og text i tid og rum positions itself in the area of Digital Humanities. The goal of the project is to study medieval texts produced in Denmark in Danish and Latin from the point of view of handwriting development, as well as dating and localization of the manuscripts. The project is cross-disciplinary and combines qualitative and quantitative approaches from philology, history, and language technology. The project will:  
 
• provide dynamic and interactive digital editions of diplomas, that is, historical documents with judicial contents  
• perform systematic research into the script and language of the diplomas  
• survey the enterprise of diplomatics in a convent in medieval Denmark and the persons and places involved  
• develop an open source system for research, publication, and dissemination of handwritten texts in digital and printed format  
• develop tools for automatic linguistic analysis of texts as well as automatic dating, localizing, and identifying scribal schools based on machine-learning techniques  
 
Job content  
The successful candidate will engage in cutting-edge research in the area of Digital Humanities. In particular, the candidate will contribute to the development of language technology tools for the lemmatization and morphosyntactic analysis of medieval texts from Denmark, both in Danish and Latin. Furthermore s/he will engage in the application of machine learning to the task of automatic dating and localization of the same texts using existing linguistic annotations as well as visual features. The candidate will work in close collaboration not only with computational linguists from CST, but also with experts in manuscript studies and philology (including digital philology).  
 
Qualification requirements  
In order to be considered for the position applicants must have research qualifications at least corresponding to what can be achieved as part of a successfully completed PhD within a relevant field, including international publications in relevant research areas.  
We expect candidates to have programming experience, as well as a strong background in machine learning applied to the area of Natural Language Processing. Knowledge of one or more of the following areas will be considered an asset:  
 
• Digital image processing  
• Digital Humanities  
• Previous work with texts in older languages (especially Nordic languages and Latin)  
 
Furthermore, emphasis will be placed on the following:  
 
• Research qualifications, which will be assessed in relation to the period of active research, the degree of originality, and academic output  
• The applicant’s scientific record, academic breadth and depth, rigour thoroughness and accuracy, as well as academic relevance in relation to the job description  
• Documented administrative qualifications, if any  
• Participation in networks – national and international  
• Good interpersonal skills  
• Good skills in English, written and spoken  
 
For further details about the qualification requirements for postdocs, please refer to the job structure for academic staff: http://ufm.dk/en/legislation/prevailing-laws-and-regulations/education 
 
For further information about the position, please contact Head of the Department Bolette Pedersen (bspedersen@hum.ku.dk)
 
Application  
Applications must be submitted online in Adobe PDF or Word format.  
ZIP-files cannot be uploaded.  
 
Please click on the “Apply now
 
The application must be written in English and include the following enclosures:  
 
• Application letter/cover letter.  
• Curriculum vitae (with applicant’s e-mail address & telephone number).  
• Documentation of qualifications (examination certificates/PhD diploma, etc.).  
• Complete and numbered list of publications. The enclosed publications must be marked with *.  
• A short description of the applicant’s previous research and how it is relevant to the project.  
• Publications. Applicants may choose a maximum of three publications for assessment. Publication dates must be clearly marked on the publication list. The publications selected must be uploaded as attachments and listed from 1 to 3.  
 
Should any material submitted consist of work with named co-authors, or work that is otherwise the result of collective academic endeavours, the extent of the applicant’s contribution to the work must be clearly stipulated. The Faculty may ask for a signed statement from the co-authors stipulating the extent and nature of each individual’s contribution.  
 
Only material in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, English, German and French can be expected to be assessed.  
 
All material will be shredded at the end of the appointment procedure.  
  
Appointment procedure  
After the application deadline, the Head of Department selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the Appointment Committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been accepted for assessment. The Dean subsequently appoints an expert assessment committee tasked with carrying out an assessment of the selected applicants for the specific post. Selected applicants are notified of the composition of the committee. Applicants are ultimately offered the opportunity of commenting on the part of the assessment relating to themselves before the appointment is finalized.  
 
Applicants will be continuously informed about the progress of the procedure by e-mail.  
 
Further information about the application procedure is available from Rikke Dall, academic officer, HR South and City Campus, e-mail: jobs-vip-nfi@hum.ku.dk 
 
Salary and conditions of employment  
Terms of appointment and salary will be in accordance with an agreement between the Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (AC). The salary range starts at DKK 32,000 (EUR 3,667) + a 17,1 % contribution to the pension scheme. It is possible to negotiate salary supplements on an annual basis.  
 
The Danish Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (AC) have further agreed on a protocol that makes it possible for international researchers employed by the University to achieve a pension exemption, whereby the pension contribution will be paid out as salary. For more information about the different pension schemes, please see http://ism.ku.dk/onarrival/pension/ 
 
A special tax scheme is offered to researchers recruited abroad, http://ism.ku.dk/onarrival/  
 
If you consider applying from abroad, you may find useful information on how it is to work in Denmark and at UCPH.  
 
 
UCPH wishes to encourage everyone interested in this post to apply, regardless of personal background.  
 
The closing date for applications is 23.59 CEST, 1. september 2017.  
 
Applications or supplementary material received thereafter will not be considered.  

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