LINGUIST List 13.3249

Wed Dec 11 2002

Support: NLP: PhD at U/Sheffield, UK

Editor for this issue: Michael Appleby <michaellinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Linda Perna, NLP: EPSRC studentship for PhD at U/Sheffield, UK

	PhD Opportunity in Natural Language Processing

EPSRC studentship: NLP group, Computer Science Department, University
of Sheffield

The AKT project is a multi million pound project for research on the
future of knowledge management funded by EPSRC. AKT will extend
knowledge management technologies to exploit the potential of the
semantic web, covering the use of knowledge over its entire lifecycle,
from acquisition to maintenance and deletion. Partners involved in
this project are the University of Sheffield, Southampton, Edinburgh,
Aberdeen and Open University.

The student activity will concern methodologies for Adaptive
Information Extraction from text for Knowledge Management. Sheffield's
NLP group is one of the internationally leading groups for research on
Information Extraction.

We would like the student to focus on one of the following areas: 

* Terminology recognition, e.g. identification and classification of
domain-specific descriptions in complex domains such as medical
informatics, engineering, biology, etc.;
* Integration of Information Retrieval and Information Extraction for
the Semantic Web for document annotation and retrieval;
* Unsupervised machine learning methodologies for Information
Extraction from Text (it potentially intersects with the previous
ones);

We invite applications from people with an education in computer
science or related fields, with at least a 2:1 degree. We expect the
candidate to have good track record, including excellent programming
skills. We look for a highly motivated person to enter a team involved
in a challenging research project. We look for a person interested in
doing research at the highest levels. Knowledge of Java (or C) is very
important, knowledge of Information Extraction from Text and Natural
Language Processing are a definite advantage.

More information on Akt can be found at http://www.aktors.org. Sheffield's
activity is described at
	http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/research/groups/nlp/akt/

The successful student will receive a stipend of �10,000 per
annum. University fees will be paid for by AKT as well.

The post is offered for three years.

Applications:

For informal enquiries, please contact Professor Yorick Wilks
(y.wilksdcs.shef.ac.uk) or Dr Fabio Ciravegna
(f.ciravegnadcs.shef.ac.uk)

PhD application forms are available by contacting the Department
(deptdcs.shef.ac.uk) or you can download an application form from the
University Graduate Research Office Site at:

http://www.shef.ac.uk/~gradsch/Recruitment/ApplicationForm/index.html

Further Particulars:

This is a lively and busy academic department currently with
twenty-seven academic staff, twenty-five research associates, one
departmental administrator, six secretaries, seven technical staff and
approximately 500 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the
Department. We are in both the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty
of Pure Science running six undergraduate degree courses and five MSc
courses. There are six research groups - Natural Language Processing,
Speech and Hearing, Verification and Testing, Machine Learning,
Graphics and Robotics.

The NLP Research Group is the largest group within the Department of
Computer Science, with 2 Professors, 1 Readers, 1 Senior Lecturer and
2 Senior Research Scientists. The group also consists of about 25
Research Associates, 8 PhD Students, 2 Research Coordinators, and 1
Research Secretary.

The NLP Group currently has 11 Grants, 5 European (3 as Coordinator)
and 7 UK.