Title of the Position: Postdoctoral Associate
Department and School: Department of Linguistics, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Anticipated Appointment Dates: August 15, 2024, to August 14, 2025 (with the possibility for a one-year renewal); the exact dates are flexible.
Email/website: https://rtmccoy.com/prospective_postdocs/
Introduction of Department: The Yale Department of Linguistics is home to a broad range of scholars who study language in its many facets: What rules or constraints define the structure of language? How do people learn and process language? How do languages change over time? How can we develop technology that can process language effectively? By studying such topics, we can use language as a window into the human mind and human society.
Overview of the Position: The Yale Department of Linguistics seeks candidates for a
Postdoctoral Associate in Computational Linguistics, who would work under the guidance of
Professor Tom McCoy. Applicants should have a background in Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Computer Science, or another discipline related to computational linguistics. The applicant’s research agenda should relate to the use of computational methods to understand human cognition and/or the use of insights from linguistics and cognitive science to advance artificial intelligence; applicants who are purely interested in artificial intelligence, without a connection to linguistics, would not be a strong fit for this position. Potential research directions include developing computational models of language learning (e.g., neural networks or Bayesian models) or analyzing the linguistic representations of large language models; see https://rtmccoy.com/research/ for more discussion of potential research topics.
Education: The postdoctoral associate will be encouraged to attend seminars within the Linguistics Department that cover topics relevant to their research interests and professional goals. During regular meetings with the faculty mentor, the postdoc will also discuss current research in computational linguistics in order to further their education about the state of the field.
Training: At the start of employment, the postdoc and the faculty mentor will meet to discuss the postdoc’s career goals so that they can develop a plan for how their time at Yale can best advance those goals. Depending on the nature of those goals, types of training that the postdoc might receive include training from the faculty mentor in relevant computational techniques, opportunities to mentor student research (with guidance from the faculty mentor), and attendance at workshops about career planning.
Mentoring: The postdoctoral associate will attend weekly meetings with the faculty advisor to discuss research projects. They will also be encouraged to attend weekly lab meetings for the research groups that relate to their interests, such as the Computational Linguistics at Yale (CLAY) research group, and they will be encouraged to collaborate with other members of Yale’s computational linguistics community.
Location: The postdoctoral position will be held in-person on the Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut, at the Department of Linguistics in Dow Hall.
Timeline: This postdoctoral position is a one-year appointment with the possibility for a one-year renewal, up to a maximum total of three years. The start date is flexible but is expected to be approximately August 15, 2024.
Qualifications: The applicant must have received a PhD before their start date. They are also expected to have a background in the application of computational methods within linguistics or cognitive science. Applicants will be judged based on their prior achievements and their fit with the faculty mentor’s research interests.
Process to apply: Applications will be considered on a rolling basis, with priority given to applications received on or before April 4, 2024.. Applicants should supply three things: (i) An up-to-date CV; (ii) exactly two writing samples (e.g., two papers that you have written); and (iii) a one-to-two paragraph summary of the applicant’s research interests. The research summary can be informal (e.g., it could just be a bulleted list) - the goal is simply to provide a sense of what topics or questions the applicant might want to work on during a postdoc. Please send these materials via email to [email protected]; the subject line of the email should contain the phrase “Postdoc application” and your name (e.g., “Postdoc application: Alex Smith”).
Selected applicants may be asked to also provide two letters of recommendation, but these should not be submitted with the initial application.