Overview
The Computation, Cognition and Language group at Idiap in Martigny
(Switzerland) invites applications for a 4-year funded PhD position that
aims to investigate how new terms emerge and how they spread in
different contexts, thereby comparing Western societies with
hunter-gatherer societies.
RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT:
The position will be part of the National Centre of Competence in
Research (NCCR) Evolving Language www.evolvinglanguage.ch, a Swiss
consortium with the ambitious goal of creating a new discipline,
Evolutionary Language Science, that targets the past and future of
language. The consortium consists of leading scientists from
traditionally separated academic domains, which allows us to harvest the
diverse expertise from the humanities, social sciences, computational
sciences, natural sciences and medicine towards a broadscale
interdisciplinary collaboration. Within this framework we offer a
position in an interdisciplinary team of computational linguists and
evolutionary anthropologists from the Idiap research institute and the
University of Zurich (UZH). The candidate can be registered at the UZH
or the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) pending admission
to a doctoral school.
Company:
Idiap
Qualifications:
You should hold, or expect to obtain before the start of your
appointment, a Master’s degree (or equivalent) with a background in
computational linguistics, evolutionary anthropology, computer science,
communication systems, mathematics, and/or related fields. The ideal
candidate combines an interest and expertise both in computational
linguistics and evolutionary biology, but because this is a very rare
profile, we are also strongly encouraging applications from candidates
with expertise in one and interest in the other field. Either way, you
should have a strong interest in pursuing fundamental research on
language evolution. You should be proficient in spoken and written
English. Proficiency in or willingness to learn additional languages is
a plus.
The candidate will be located at Idiap, in the Computation, Cognition,
and Language Group under the supervision of Prof. Lonneke van der Plas
(natural language processing) at Idiap, pending budgetary approval. They
will be co-supervised by Prof. Andrea Migliano (evolutionary
anthropology) at UZH, and Prof. Lena Jäger (computational linguistics)
at UZH. (Virtual) participation in lab meetings both at Idiap and UZH is
expected. Furthermore, some fieldwork in Congo or Australia is to be
expected.
Educational level:
Master Degree
How to apply:
Please mention NLP People as a source when applying
Applications are to be made at
https://www.idiap.ch/en/join-us/job-opportunities.
About Idiap Research Institute
The Idiap Research Institute is an independent, nonprofit, research foundation.
