Overview
1- Context
The École Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Brest (ENIB) operates under the supervision of the French
Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MESR). Computer Science research in the school
takes place at the CNRS UMR Lab-STICC: https://labsticc.fr/en.
The person recruited will carry out research at the Lab-STICC within the COMMEDIA
(https://labsticc.fr/fr/equipes/commedia) and RAMBO (https://labsticc.fr/fr/equipes/rambo) teams,
which are jointly leading this project.
The person recruited will work under the guidance of Anne-Gwenn Bosser (ENIB, Lab-STICC
COMMEDIA), Mihai Andries and Christophe Lohr (IMT Atlantique, Lab-STICC RAMBO).
2- Project
The proportion of socially isolated elderly is rising steadily. Social isolation comes with
accelerated cognitive decline. Lack of dialogue is a particular contributory factor, having an
impact on the impoverishment of a person’s vocabulary. One of the solutions being explored to
solve this problem are conversational agents. Despite pilot studies on the use of conversational
agents in clinical psychological therapy showing promises, there remains a high drop-out rate
due to the lack of long-term commitment to communication with the conversational agent.
The aim of this project is to develop a long-term engaging conversational agent by combining a
personality model and the ability to adapt to the user. The project will use a social robot as a
Company:
LabSTICC
Qualifications:
Profile
The ideal candidate holds a PhD in computer science in the field of conversational agents or
dialogue planning.
Desired Knowledge
Scientific English (reading, writing, speaking), Natural Language Processing, Knowledge
Graphs, Dialogue Planning.
Desired Skills
Language processing libraries (e.g. spaCy, nltk), graphical databases (e.g. neo4j), ontologies
(e.g. ConceptNet), use of Large Language Models, experience with ROS (optional).
Languages
Language requirements:
Knowledge of English is required.
Knowledge of French is an advantage, but is neither necessary nor a selection criterion.
Specific requirements:
Eligibility criteria apply: applicants (1) must have spent at least 18 months out of France
between 1 May 2020 and the start of the project, and (2) must have defended their PhD
thesis less than 5 years ago.
Educational level:
Ph. D.
