PhD fellowship in Fair and Accountable Natural Language Processing

Department of Computer Science
Faculty of SCIENCE

University of Copenhagen

The Natural Language Processing Section at the Department of Computer Science invites applicants for a PhD fellowship in Fair and Accountable Natural Language Processing. The start date is expected to be 01.09.2023 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The project

The PhD fellowship is offered in the context of a project supported by the Carlsberg Foundation on employer images in job ads led by Pia Ingold and co-led by Isabelle Augenstein. The project team will further include one postdoctoral researcher (to be hired at the Department of Psychology) as well as external partners. The project will comprise studies using methods from experimental psychology, as well as analyses of two existing big datasets on job ads (one in Danish, one in German) using Natural Language Processing.
The role of the PhD student to be recruited in this call will be to research fair and accountable Natural Language Processing methods, which can be used to understand what influences the employer images that organisations project in job ads.

Who are we looking for?
We are looking for candidates within the fields of Natural Language Processing. Applicants should hold a MSc degree or equivalent in Computer Science or a related field, and have good written and oral English skills. It is not a requirement to speak Danish or German, but --  given that the project involves research with Danish and German job ad data -- an advantage to have some proficiency in Danish or German. The assessment of your qualifications will also be made based on previous scientific publications (if any) and relevant work experience. The ideal candidate would have an education background, prior research or work experience in ML or NLP, as well as an interest in inter-disciplinary collaborations.

Our group and research- and what do we offer?
The Natural Language Processing Section provides a strong, international and diverse environment for research within core as well as emerging topics in natural language processing, natural language understanding, computational linguistics and multi-modal language processing. It is housed within the main Science Campus, which is centrally located in Copenhagen. The section came into effect on 1 January 2021 as a spin-off from the Machine Learning section, to which it still maintains close ties.

Further information about research at the Department is available here: https://di.ku.dk/english/research/ .

The successful candidate will join Isabelle Augenstein’s Natural Language Understanding research group (www.copenlu.com/ ). The Natural Language Processing research environment at the University of Copenhagen is internationally leading, as e.g. evidenced by it being ranked 2nd in Europe according to CSRankings. Additionally, the PhD candidate will be co-supervised by Pia Ingold at the Department of Psychology (https://psy.ku.dk/ ).

The principal supervisor is Professor Isabelle Augenstein, Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, e-mail: [email protected] . The PhD student will be co-supervised by Associate Professor Pia Ingold, Department of Psychology, email: [email protected] .

The PhD programme

The PhD fellow will be enrolled into the three years of full-time study within the framework of the regular PhD programme (5+3 scheme). Note that this requires having an education equivalent to a relevant Danish master’s degree.

Qualifications needed
To be eligible for the regular PhD programme, you must have completed a degree programme, equivalent to a Danish master’s degree (180 ECTS/3 FTE BSc + 120 ECTS/2 FTE MSc) related to the subject area of the project, e.g. Computer Science, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing. For information of eligibility of completed programmes, see General assessments for specific countries and Assessment database .

Terms of employment
Employment as PhD fellow is full time and for maximum 3 years.

Employment is conditional upon your successful enrolment as a PhD student at the PhD School at the Faculty of SCIENCE, University of Copenhagen. This requires submission and acceptance of an application for the specific project formulated by the applicant.

The terms of employment and salary are in accordance to the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State (AC). The position is covered by the Protocol on Job Structure.

Responsibilities and tasks

• Carry out a research project with increasing autonomy from the PhD supervisors

• Complete PhD courses corresponding to approx. 30 ECTS / ½ FTE
• Active participation in research environments, including a stay at another research institution, preferably abroad
• Teaching and knowledge dissemination activities
• Write scientific papers aimed at high-impact journals
• Write and defend a PhD thesis on the basis of your project

We are looking for the following qualifications:

• Professional qualifications relevant to the PhD project
• Relevant publications
• Relevant work experience
• Other relevant professional activities
• Curious mind-set with a strong interest in fair and accountable natural language proessing
• Good English language skills

Application and Assessment Procedure
Your application including all attachments must be in English and submitted electronically by clicking APPLY NOW below.

Please include: 

Application deadline:
The deadline for applications is 28 February.2023, 23:59 GMT +1.

We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline, and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.

The further process
After deadline, a number of applicants will be selected for academic assessment by unbiased expert assessors. You will be notified of whether you have passed this stage of assessment.

The assessor will assess the qualifications and experience of the shortlisted applicants with respect to the above-mentioned research area, techniques, skills and other requirements. The assessors will conclude by stating whether each applicant is qualified. The assessed applicants will have the opportunity to comment on their assessment. You can read about the recruitment process at https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/ .

Interviews with selected candidates are expected to be held in weeks 12 and 13.

Questions
For specific information about the PhD fellowship, please contact the principal supervisor.

General information about PhD study at the Faculty of SCIENCE is available at the PhD School’s website: https://www.science.ku.dk/phd/ .

The University of Copenhagen wishes to reflect the surrounding community and invites all regardless of personal background to apply for the position. 

Part of the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU), and among Europe’s top-ranking universities, the University of Copenhagen promotes research and teaching of the highest international standard. Rich in tradition and modern in outlook, the University gives students and staff the opportunity to cultivate their talent in an ambitious and informal environment. An effective organisation – with good working conditions and a collaborative work culture – creates the ideal framework for a successful academic career.