Research and teaching position at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

Start date: early 2024 Contract duration: 3 years (can be extended) Payscale: E13 100% (postdoc)

We are looking to fill a research and teaching position in NLP or psycholinguistics at the at the research group of Prof. Vera Demberg. It offers great flexibility in developing your own research and teaching agenda, and collaborations with other research groups within the department of Language Science and Technology and/or at the department of Computer Science are encouraged.

The position is flexible with respect to topic, but it should connect thematically with current topics of interest to the research group. These include neural natural language generation with specific focus on data-to-text generation, avoidance of hallucinations and personalized language generation, as well as computational models of discourse processing and pragmatics. Psycholinguistic experimental work within our group revolves around information-theoretic accounts of human language processing, as well as discourse processing and experimental pragmatics. We are especially interested in individual differences in discourse and pragmatic processing (see also our ERC project "Individualized Interaction in Discourse"). You should have expertise in neural and/or linguistically principled methods in NLP, or experimental methods for psycholinguistics.

The position includes a teaching load of up to four hours per week and can be given within the BSc or MSc programs in Computational Linguistics, Computer Science or Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. Our study programs attract excellent and highly motivated students; it is not unusual for our students to publish papers at peer-reviewed conferences before graduation. The MSc students in particular are a very international crowd, with two thirds joining us from abroad. You will typically teach one seminar per semester on a topic of your choice, which will allow you to motivate students to do BSc and MSc theses under your supervision.

This is a position on the German TV-L E13 scale (100% position at the postdoc level). The starting salary of a 100% TV-L E13 position is a bit over 50,000 Euros per year and increases with experience. The initial appointment will be for three years; the position can be extended up to the limits of the German law for academic contracts (WissZeitVG). The starting date is January 2024 or later; we would be willing to adapt to the time requirements of an ideal candidate.

Requirements

We are looking for candidates who have finished, or are about to complete, an excellent PhD degree in computational linguistics, computer science, psycholinguistics or a related discipline. You must be proficient in English (spoken and written). Applicants should have demonstrated their research expertise through high-quality publications.

About the research environment

Saarland University is one of the leading centers for computational linguistics and computer science in Europe, and offers a dynamic and stimulating research environment. The Department of Language Science and Technology consists of about 100 research staff in nine research groups in the fields of computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, speech processing, and corpus linguistics.

The department is a core member of the new Research Training Group "Neuroexplicit Models of Language, Vision, and Action", which is on track to grow into one of the largest centers for research on neurosymbolic models in NLP and other fields of AI in the world. It is also the centerpiece of the Collaborative Research Center 1102 "Information Density and Linguistic Encoding" and part of the Saarland Informatics Campus, which brings together computer science research at the university with world-class research institutions on campus, such as the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). The Saarland Informatics Campus brings together 900 researchers and 2100 students from 81 countries; SIC faculty have won 36 ERC grants.

Saarland University is located in Saarbrücken, a mid-sized city in the tri-border area of Germany, France, and Luxembourg. Saarbrücken combines a lively culture scene with a relaxed atmosphere, and is quite an affordable place to live in. Our department maintains an international and diverse work environment. The primary working language is English; learning German while you are here will make it easier to connect with the local culture, but is not necessary for your work.

How to apply:

Please submit your application by email to applications-vd@lst.uni-saarland.de. Preference will be given to applications received by 6 December 2023. Please cite opening number 2402 when sending in your application materials.

Include a single PDF file with the following information: • a statement of research interests that motivates why you are applying for this position and outlines your research agenda; • a full CV including your list of publications; • scans of transcripts and academic degree certificates; • the names, affiliations, and e-mail addresses of two people who can provide letters of reference for you.

Saarland University especially welcomes applications from women and people with disabilities.

If you have further questions, please email Vera Demberg demberg@lst.uni-saarland.de.