LINGUIST List 22.3992 Wed Oct 12 2011 Jobs: NLG; Comp Semantics: Research Scientist, U of Colorado, Boulder Editor for this issue: Christy Bird <christylinguistlist.org> The LINGUIST List strongly encourages employers to engage in non-discriminatory hiring practices. We urge employers not to discriminate on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, age, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. However, we have no means of enforcing these standards. Job seekers should pay special attention to language in ads regarding employment requirements and are encouraged to consult our international employment page at http://linguistlist.org/jobs/jobnet.html. This page has been set up so that people can report on the employment standards of various countries. To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/posttolinguist.cfm Directory         1.     Rodney Nielsen , Natural Language Generation; Computational Semantics: Research Scientist, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA Message 1: Natural Language Generation; Computational Semantics: Research Scientist, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA Date: 11-Oct-2011 From: Rodney Nielsen <Rodney.NielsenColorado.edu> Subject: Natural Language Generation; Computational Semantics: Research Scientist, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA E-mail this message to a friend University or Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Department: Computational Language & Education Research Center Job Location: Colorado, USA Web Address: http://clear.colorado.edu/ Job Rank: Research Scientist Specialty Areas: Computational Linguistics; Semantics; Natural Language Generation; Spoken Dialogue Systems Description: The Companionbots project at the Computational Language & Education Research center, University of Colorado, invites applications for two Research Scientists in Human-Robot Dialogue: one in Natural Language Generation (NLG), the other in Computational Semantics. Project: CU is leading an NSF-funded project, Companionbots for Proactive Therapeutic Dialog on Depression, to conduct research on a new class of dialog-based, home robotic healthcare assistants to facilitate in-home, real- time care. The immediate project will result in enabling technology that integrates language, vision and emotive technology to proactively recognize situations and dialog with isolated elderly patients suffering from depression. Object and human activity recognition will augment NLP to provide current and historical context important to dynamic dialog. An emotive, physical avatar will provide an interaction mechanism with sufficient trust to extract meaningful information that may not be observable in the immediate environment. The proactive generation of questions will be driven by a user model including context, goals, health, experiences, interests and prior interactions. Positions: NLG: will span multiple genres from casual conversation to goal-directed mental health education and training, with an emphasis on question generation. It will explore multiple techniques from typical Spoken Dialogue Systems (SDS) to text-to-text NLG methods. Computational Semantics: will create a deep understanding and representation of a situation and spoken dialog based on past and immediate context. The semantics extracted will be used to construct a user model and predict future adverse events and situations. Both: You will be encouraged to develop independent research ideas within the scope of the project, will play an active role in a variety of project areas and will have the opportunity to apply your expertise to a critical, real-life problem in a multidisciplinary environment. You will interact closely with the project's clinical experts in understanding subjects and developing healthcare-related dialogue strategies, with users to help guide and evaluate research & development, with Vision researchers to enhance contextual understanding, with Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) experts to improve ASR with semantic context and with mechantronics researchers to ensure contextually appropriate emotive output. Qualifications: - Expertise in the area you are applying, preferably in the context of conversational SDSs - A PhD in computer science, computational linguistics, or a closely related discipline - Skills in the application of Machine Learning to computational linguistics tasks - Excellent software design and implementation skills - Good verbal communication and English writing skills - The ability to work both independently and in a multidisciplinary team - Working knowledge or publication record in usability, user modeling, discourse analysis and cognitive science related to SDS is a plus To apply follow the instructions at these Jobs at CU links: NLG - Job Posting Number 815056 https://www.jobsatcu.com/applicants/jsp/shared/position/JobDetails_css.jsp?postingId=266674 Computational Semantics - Job Posting Number 815059 https://www.jobsatcu.com/applicants/jsp/shared/position/JobDetails_css.jsp?postingId=266569 CU is an EOE committed to building a diverse workforce. We encourage applications from women, racial & ethnic minorities, individuals with disabilities & veterans Alternative formats of ad can be provided to individuals with disabilities by contacting the ADA Coordinator at (303) 492-1334. CU conducts background checks on all final candidates. Application Deadline: (Open until filled) Web Address for Applications: http://www.jobsatcu.com/ Contact Information: Rodney Nielsen Email: Rodney.NielsenColorado.edu Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 12-Oct-2011       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.