[SIGLEX-MWE] 2 post-doc positions at Aix Marseille University (France)

[Carlos R. <car...@li...>]

Aix Marseille University offers 2 post-doc positions in natural language
processing, starting in January 2018 or earlier. Candidates can apply to
one position or to both. Applications should be sent before October 15,
2017.


Offer 1 - ALECTOR

-----------------

 * Duration: 1 year, starting in January 2018 (or earlier)

 * Location: Laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix en Provence (
http://www.lpl-aix.fr/)

 * Employer: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

 * Contract : CDD
 * Remuneration: according to CNRS pay grid and experience (around 2,000€
to 2,400€)

**Word sense disambiguation and lexical substitution in French**

The recruited post-doc researcher will work at Laboratoire Parole et
Langage in Aix en Provence. The researcher will work in the ANR project
ALECTOR (https://alectorsite.wordpress.com/). The aim of the project is to
develop tools for reading assistance for dyslexic children based on
automatic text simplification.

The mission of the post-doc includes two main goals. On the one hand, it
will be necessary to develop original methods for **lexical substitution**,
taking into account intra-lexical and statistical criteria. Therefore, the
researcher will use existing results and resources for word sense
disambiguation, notably ReSyf (a lexicon of graded and disambiguated
synonyms). On the other hand, it will be required to enrich the resource by
including **multiword expressions**, for which a complexity degree must be
assigned.

Publishing the results and transferring them to the partner teams in the
project will also be part of the post-doc missions.

## Profile:

 * PhD in computer science, natural language processing or similar domain
 * Excellent level of written and spoken French and English is required

## Full description:

https://alectorsite.wordpress.com/2017/09/13/recrutement-dun-post-doc/


Offer 2 - PARSEME-FR

--------------------

 * Duration: 2 years, starting in January 2018 (or earlier)

 * Location: Laboratoire d'informatique fondamentale, Marseilles (
http://www.lif.univ-mrs.fr)

 * Employer: Aix Marseille University

 * Contract : CDD

 * Remuneration: according to AMU pay grid and experience (around 2,000€ to
2,400€)

**Identification of multiword expressions off the beaten path : towards
MWE-aware semantic parsing**

The recruited post-doc researcher will work at Laboratoire d'Informatique
Fondamentale in Marseilles - Luminy. The researcher will work in the ANR
project PARSEME-FR (http://parsemefr.lif.univ-mrs.fr). The goal of the
project is to build systems for parsing and identification of multiword
expressions (MWEs) in French.

MWEs such as "French fries", "take a break" and "do one's best" often pose
problems for text analysis chains because of their idiosyncratic nature.
Among their notably challenging characteristics, they can present irregular
syntactic structure, discontinuities and ambiguity. The task of automatic **MWE
identification** consists in determining which words are part of a
multiword expression, and how they are related to each other.

Considerable progress has been made in the last years to understand and
model the interactions between MWE identification and syntactic parsing.
However, the interactions between MWEs and **semantic parsing** have not
received much emphasis. This is surprising, given that many MWEs breach the
principle of semantic compositionality to some extent, requiring special
treatment in semantic analysis. Therefore, the **goal of the proposed
post-doc project is to develop and evaluate original methods for
semantic-aware MWE identification and MWE-aware semantic parsing**. The
recruited post-doc will be responsible for the development of a software
prototype for MWE identification in French. Nonetheless, the methods
implemented therein should be as language independent and universal as
possible.

## Profile:

 * PhD in computer science, natural language processing or similar domain
 * Good knowledge of French and English (not necessarily native)

## Full description:

http://parsemefr.lif.univ-mrs.fr/doku.php?id=job-2017-lif-postdoc


Context

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The metropolitan area of Aix-Marseilles is a the second largest in France.
It offers a vibrant environment conveniently situated on the south coast of
France, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Aix-Marseilles is a
cosmopolite and well connected urban area with Mediterranean climate and
surrounded by stunning landscapes such as the Calanques natural park and
the Provence region.

Aix Marseille University is the largest university in France and of the
francophone world by its number of students and staff. It provides a lively
and diverse research environment which attracts scientists carrying out
research in many areas, including computational linguistics, in
collaboration with leading international organizations.

The post-doc will be supervised by one of the local project coordinators
and will become a member of the research teams of LPL in Aix-en-Provence
(offer 1) or of LIF in Marseilles (offer 2), both specialised in
computational linguistics. The post-doc will participate in the national
project meetings, co-author articles submitted to top-tier conferences and
journals, and interact with other project members in France and with
members of the international research community.


Application

-----------

**Applications should be sent before October 15, 2017**. Candidates should
send the following documents as a single attached document named
**LASTNAME-Firstname.pdf**, in French OR in English, to Nuria Gala, Carlos
Ramisch and Alexis Nasr (Fir...@un...), indicating
"Application post-doc AMU" in the subject line :

 * a CV, including a list of publications

 * a cover letter explaining how the offer matches your interests and
experience

 * a copy of their PhD degree or a document indicating the expected defense
date

 * and the names and emails of 1 or 2 referees to be contacted

Candidates applying to both positions should indicate and motivate this in
their cover letter, but send a single application file.