Associate Senior Lecturer in Computational Linguistics - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

The Department of Linguistics and Philology is involved in research and education in a number of languages and language-related subjects and provides an international work environment. The department’s activities cover many of the classical and modern languages and cultures in large areas of Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as computational and general linguistics. Education is offered at the Bachelor, Master and PhD levels.

Description of the subject area for the position: Computational linguistics, or language technology, is an interdisciplinary research field dealing with computational models of natural language. Research is driven both by the theoretical goal of understanding human language use and by practical applications such as systems for automatic translation, information retrieval and human-computer dialogue. The computational linguistics group at Uppsala University conducts research within a broad area focusing on multilingual systems, especially machine translation, and systems for grammatical analysis of text, especially dependency parsing. Another focus area is digital humanities, with projects on handwritten text recognition, historical text processing and decoding of historical ciphers.

General duties:

• Teaching, research and administration.
• Teaching primarily includes courses in language technology, including thesis supervision, within the international master’s program in language technology, which is taught in English. Courses with the following specializations are relevant: general language technology, language technology applications such as information retrieval and machine translation, machine learning in language technology, programming and mathematics. Supervision of PhD students may also be included.
• Within research, the holder of the position is expected to work together with and strengthen the existing research group within the area and participate in externally funded projects.
• Duties also include following development in the subject area and in society in general that are of significance for the work at the university.

Eligibility:

• PhD degree in computational linguistics or other relevant area. Priority will be given to applicants who have obtained their PhD degree or achieved equivalent competence at most five years before the deadline for applications.
• Scientific and pedagogical skills. The scientific and pedagogical skills have to be relevant for the subject area and the duties of the position.
• The applicant should have completed teacher training of relevance to operations at the University, comprising ten weeks, or have acquired the equivalent knowledge. If special circumstances apply, this training for teachers in higher education may be completed during the first two years of employment.

The applicant should have documented ability to teach in English. The applicant should have the personal capabilities required to carry out the duties of the position well.

Assessment criteria: In the ranking of eligible applicants, special importance will be given to scientific and pedagogical expertise, which will be assigned equal weight.

Scientific expertise includes proven research skills as well as the applicant’s potential to contribute to future development of both research and education. In the assessment of scientific expertise, primary consideration will be given to research quality. Importance will also be given to the scope of research, in terms of both breadth and depth. In the assessment of scientific expertise, special weight will be assigned to qualifications concerning the central methods, questions, and applications of language technology, for which machine learning plays a crucial role.

Pedagogical expertise includes expertise on education and teaching. In the assessment of pedagogical expertise, primary consideration will be given to pedagogical quality. Importance will also be given to the scope of teaching, in terms of both breadth and depth. In the assessment of pedagogical expertise, special weight will be assigned to teaching in language technology, in particular with a focus on machine learning and language technology applications. In addition, teaching qualifications in mathematics and programming are qualifying.

All qualifications should be documented in such a way that both quality and quantity can be assessed.

In appointing a person to this academic post, priority will be given to the applicant who, after a holistic assessment of competence and skills, including documented qualifications, is judged to possess the greatest potential for performing and further developing the relevant duties and contributing to the positive development of the working environment.

Further information: Parental leave, part-time work because of child care, union service, military service or similar experience is regarded as work experience and should be documented in the CV.

Applications: Complete applications submitted through the digital recruitment system of Uppsala University should include:

• Curriculum Vitae
• Personal letter
• List of attached appendices
• Account of scientific qualifications
• List of publications
• Account of pedagogical qualifications
• Account of other qualifications
• Research plan of at most 5 pages describing the research that the applicant intends to carry out during the employment period
• The scientific and pedagogical works that are submitted for consideration (at most 10)

Hard copies of any publications cited that are not available in electronic format and cannot be scanned must be send, in duplicate, to the Faculty of Languages, Uppsala University, Box 256, SE-75105 Uppsala. Write the following reference number on the envelope: UFV-PA 2021/84.  

Starting: 2021-08-01 or as otherwise agreed

Type of employment: Temporary position for four years. Employment as associate senior lecturer can be held for at most four years with the possibility of promotion to senior lecturer. Trial employment may be used.

For further information about the position, please contact: Professor Joakim Nivre, email joakim.nivre@lingfil.uu.se, or the Head of Department, Hans Svensson, e-mail prefekt@lingfil.uu.se.

Application deadline: 4 March 2021