Postdoctoral Researcher in Machine Learning & Natural Language Processing

• Contribute to the ADAPT research agenda that pioneers and combines research in AI driven technologies: Natural Language Processing, Video/Text/Image/Speech processing, digital engagement & HCI, semantic modeling, personalisation, privacy & data governance. 
• Work with our interdisciplinary team of  leading experts from the complementary fields of, Social Sciences,  Communications, Commerce/Fintech, Ethics, Law,  Health, Environment and Sustainability.
• Leverage our success.  ADAPT’s researchers have signed 43 collaborative research projects, 52 licence agreements and oversee 16 active commercialisation funds and 52 commercialisation awards.  ADAPT has won 40 competitive EU research projects and obtained €18.5 million in non-exchequer non-commercial funding. Additionally, six spinout companies have been formed. ADAPT’s researchers have produced over 1,500 journal and conference publications and nearly 100 PhD students have been trained. 
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As an ADAPT researcher you will have access to a network of 85 global experts and over 250 staff as well as a wide multi-disciplinary ecosystem across 8 leading Irish universities. We can influence and inform your work, share our networks and collaborate with you to increase your impact, and accelerate your career opportunities. Specifically we offer: 

• Exposure and free access within a multi-disciplinary ecosystem across 8 leading Irish universities
• Opportunity to build your profile at international conferences and global events 
• Fast-track your career through formalised training & development, expert one-on-one supervision and exposure to top AI specialists

Dialogue systems aim to have high quality conversations with users, emulating natural conversation skills, all the while completing a task efficiently and improving user experience. Research into dialogue systems faces similar challenges to other areas of Natural Language Processing (NLP), with respect to evaluation of systems. How can we best evaluate systems so results are realistic, accurate, and reliable? Good evaluation of systems is vital to guide research in the most promising direction and to avoid following directions that unknowingly negatively impact the performance of systems from the perspective of human users. Dialogue systems research is thought to be the future of human computer interaction and providing a means of accurate evaluation in this area therefore remains a high priority in NLP. The topic is under-researched however possibly due to the significant challenges that lie in the development of good evaluation methods relative to other research areas.

The project involves development of successful methods of evaluation for dialogue systems, including human and automatic metric-based evaluation. On completion of the project, the researcher will have experience with integrating state-of-the-art dialogue models into crowdsourcing platforms, such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, as well as using neural networks for automatic evaluation of dialogue quality. The work involved in this project as well as high impact publication venues will result in experience highly desired by companies such as Facebook, Google and LinkedIn to name but a few, in addition to being valuable for academic research careers in NLP and Machine Learning.

• Have a high-valuable impact to the project through the implementation of technical solutions to the project goals, in particular methods of evaluation that will have high benefit within  dialogue systems research community
• Enhance your reputation through publishing in top-quality journals and conferences in collaboration with team members
• ADAPT’s Research Development Team will help you develop your ideas into projects and establish a strong funding track record
• Participate alongside leading experts in exciting project activities and events to further research in machine learning
• Contribute to the development of the next generation of thinkers and innovators through teaching and supervision activities
• You will have the opportunity to nationally and internationally present and represent the ground breaking research carried out by you and the research team
• You will develop as a researcher through access to a wide training & development opportunity
• You will build a strong network through opportunities to liaise with internal and external stakeholders including industry and academic partners/collaborators.
• Involvement with all aspects of the project lifecycle
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• PhD or equivalent in computer science or aligned field. 
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• PhD or equivalent in natural language processing or machine learning

• Flexible working arrangements 

• Employee Assistance Programme 

• Computer and peripherals of your choice 

• A fast-paced environment with impactful work 

For informal inquiries please contact Prof Yvette Graham ([email protected] ) about the position.

Applicants should submit an application via the following link: https://forms.gle/8xiELYq8QLR899Xp8 . As part of the application, candidates are asked to provide the following

• Cover Letter
  • A personal letter of motivation, indicating why you wish to conduct this research project offered by ADAPT, and why you expect that you will be able to complete the research successfully;
• CV
  • Detailed curriculum vitae, including – if applicable – relevant publications;

ADAPT is committed to achieving better diversity and gender representation at all levels of the organisation, across leadership, academic, operations, research staff and studentship levels. ADAPT is committed to the continued development of employment policies, procedures and practices that promote gender equality. On that basis we encourage and welcome talented people from all backgrounds to join ADAPT.