** Job openings: PhD studentships on meaning variation in NLP **

Utrecht University, The Netherlands

The Natural Language Processing  (NLP) group in the Computing and Information Sciences department of Utrecht University (UU) is looking for young researchers who want to jump-start their career in AI / NLP by taking up a PhD position.

Two four-year positions are available now. They are part of the AiNed project “Dealing with Meaning Variation in NLP”, which will be led by Prof. Massimo Poesio. Vacancies for 4 further PhD positions on this project will become available over the coming 1-2 years. The overall aim of the project is to allow NLP models to make better sense of variations in the ways that different speakers and readers interpret language. The plan is for each of the 6 PhD projects to be supervised by one researcher from the NLP group and one from UU's Institute for Language Sciences.

PhD PROJECT 1: Formal semantics for vagueness in interpretation

This project is concerned with vagueness, a pervasive phenomenon in which the meanings of words have imprecisely defined boundaries, which are applied differently in different contexts and by different people (for example when the air temperature is described as "warm"). This PhD project will study mathematical and computational models of uncertainty and vagueness. In recent years, the theoretical literature in this area has shifted away from 2-valued towards multi-valued models, but these models have rarely been tested with real data. This PhD project will use existing “big” datasets (which are available in the weather domain, for example) to find out which models predict and explain the data best.        The successful candidate will hold a Master’s degree in an area relevant to this project; this could be Artificial Intelligence, Computational Cognitive Science, Computing Science, or Linguistics. A good mastery of NLP and Excellent English communication skills (oral and written) is essential. We would also like you to take a strong interest in multi-valued and other models of natural language meaning, and in machine learning.

PhD PROJECT 2: Learning under disagreements between annotators

In NLP, human annotators are frequently needed to tell researchers what a given expression “means”, by assigning the expression a label. When human judges disagree about a label (e.g., whether an utterance is offensive or not), it is important that these disagreements be taken into account, as opposed to simply aggregating the values e.g., using reconciliation or majority voting. Such disagreements are now generally recognized to provide information rather than being noise.

This PhD project will investigate whether the differences between various sources of disagreement (e.g., noise, ambiguity, and subjective bias) can be detected using statistical models (e.g. cross-entropy, Kullback-Leibler divergence). Last but not least, it will investigate to what extent variations in one person’s verbal behaviour can be understood mathematically in the same way as variations between different speakers. The proposed research would ideally be carried out by someone well versed in information theory and the design and analysis of experiments with human participants.       The successful candidate will hold a Master’s degree in an area relevant to this project; this area could be Artificial Intelligence, Computational Cognitive Science, Computing Science, Linguistics, or Statistics. A good mastery of statistics and deep learning is essential; experience with NLP would be beneficial. A good mastery of NLP and Excellent English communication skills (oral and written) is essential. You  take a strong interest in at least two of the three following areas: (1) machine learning, (2) natural language, and (3) experimental psychology.

Further information about these vacancies can be found at

PhD position in Natural Language Processing: statistical models of disagreement between annotators (0.8 – 1.0 FTE) - Working at Utrecht University - Utrecht University (uu.nl) https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/working-at-utrecht-university/jobs/phd-position-in-natural-language-processing-statistical-models-of-disagreement-between-annotators-08

PhD position in Natural Language Processing: verbal expression of quantities (0.8 - 1.0 FTE) - Working at Utrecht University - Utrecht University (uu.nl) https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/working-at-utrecht-university/jobs/phd-position-in-natural-language-processing-verbal-expression-of-quantities-08-10-fte

Deadline for application is 29 May 2023. We’re looking for someone to start as soon as possible after the recruitment process is concluded but we understand that it will normally take a few months before the candidate will be ready to start.

Applications should be made through the University's site (see links above).

For further information, please contact: - Prof. Massimo Poesio (m.poesio AT uu.nl). - Prof. Kees Van Deemter (c.j.vandeemter AT uu.nl).