PhD scholarships, Heidelberg University

5 PhD scholarships in Computational Linguistics: “Semantics beyond the
sentence” (Date: July 5th 2011, Deadline: July 31st)

We are soliciting applications for 5 PhD scholarships (EUR 1310 per
month, tax-free) within the research initiative “Coherence in Language
Processing: Semantics Beyond the Sentence”. They are associated with
the Graduate Program “Semantic Processing”, jointly organized by the
Computational Linguistics Department (ICL) at Heidelberg University
[1] and the NLP Group at HITS gGmbH [2] in Heidelberg, Germany. The
scholarships are available from October 1st, 2011, and will run three
years (dependent on positive evaluations after the first and second
years).

The goal of the research initiative “Coherence in Language Processing:
Semantics Beyond the Sentence” is to investigate computational models
of semantic phenomena at the discourse level by (a) analysing semantic
phenomena at the discourse level and represent them; (b) using these
representatons to improve semantic analysis; (c) evaluating (a) and
(b) in NLP applications, including SMT. See [3] for details.

Candidates should have a strong background in computational
linguistics and possess a Masters or a Diploma degree in either
Computational Linguistics or Computer Science/Linguistics with a
specialization in Natural Language Processing. Experience with machine
learning, corpus-based methods and statistics is a plus. Strong
programming skills (Java, C++, or Python) are required.

Scholarship holders will become members of the graduate program
“Semantic Processing” [4]. They will participate in a PhD colloquium
and may attend lectures at the university and the Heidelberg Graduate
School “MathComp” [5]. The graduate program provides a lively research
environment with about ten PhD students already
enrolled. Interdisciplinary research links exist to computer science,
linguistics, and other disciplines.

Applications should include a research statement indicating the
candidates’ interests and plans (which should fall into the area
outlined above), university transcripts and a CV. They should also
indicate a preference for a primary supervisor matching their plans
(Anette Frank, Sebastian Pado, Stefan Riezler, Michael Strube). For
more details, see the links below.

Please send your application, including all documents, as a single PDF
file before **July 31st 2011** to:
Anke Sopka & Corinna Schwarz
Sekretariat Computerlinguistik
sekretariat(at)cl.uni-heidelberg.de

Questions should be sent to Sebastian Pado, pado(at)cl.uni-heidelberg.de

Links:
[1] ICL (http://www.cl.uni-heidelberg.de)
[2] HITS (http://www.h-its.org/nlp)
[3] Research Initiative Discourse Semantics
http://semproc.cl.uni-heidelberg.de/discourse-semantics/
[4] Graduate Program Semantic Processing
http://semproc.cl.uni-heidelberg.de
[5] Heidelberg Graduate School in Mathematical
and Computational Methods for the Sciences
http://www.mathcomp.uni-heidelberg.de/