Research Assistant position in Speech Recognition University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics
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Research Assistant
Closing Date : 26-Feb-2018
Contact Number : 0131 650 2723
The successful candidate will play a leading role in the development of flexible speech recognition systems which work over a wide range of languages, domains, and genres. A key aspect of the work will be a focus on approaches which use representations such as subword lattices and learned distributed representations which can be integrated with machine translation, information retrieval, and summarisation components. The post will include the development of acoustic and language models, with attention paid to issues including multilingual features, low-resource training, domain adaptation, and the estimation of confidence scores.
The role is thus expected to involve working with state-of-the-art acoustic and language modelling methods including deep and recurrent neural networks, weighted finite state transducers, and architectures for end-to-end learning.
The post is available for 12 months (with the possibility of extension) from 1 March 2018.
Grade: UE06 (£27,285 - £31,604) Please feel free to contact Steve Renals (s.renals@ed.ac.uk) for informal enquiries.
1) Job Details Job title: Research Assistant
2) Project Details SCRIPTS is an international collaborative project which aims to develop an end-to-end cross-language retrieval system over speech and text documents. The overall approach in SCRIPTS will be to use shared cross-lingual distributed semantic representations across the speech processing and NLP components, with the ultimate aim of developing joint training approaches. International collaborators in the project include Columbia University, Cambridge University, University of Maryland, and Yale University.
3) Job Purpose Research staff are normally employed to work on a particular project, based on restricted funding arising from a specific source, such as a UK Research Council grant or similar. (Occasionally a post holder will work on more than one project). This job description sets out the very general nature of such a post. Specific responsibilities will be determined by the project itself, and the member of staff responsible for that project. This generic job description is accompanied by the further particulars for the post which specifies the project areas of work.
4) Representative Work Activities In general, to support the Principal Investigator of a specific project in achieving the goals of that project, under his/her direction.
• Undertaking a specific role in the research project under supervision
5) Planning and organising The post holder will have to agree a general plan of research with the Principal Investigator and progress will be monitored at pre-scheduled meetings.
6) Problem Solving The problems to be faced are purely scientific and the post holder will supply the detailed expertise for delivering a solution. They will be expected to achieve this under instruction by and with advice from the Principal Investigator and other academic and senior research staff.
7) Decision making The postholder will be given limited freedom to decide on the appropriate methodology for the work. They will also need to be able to assess timescales and adjust goals as appropriate so that results can be achieved over the wider timescale and aims of the project.
8) Key contacts/relationships The post holder will principally interact with the Principal Investigator and other project staff and students. More generally, the post holder will discuss the work, and other questions of scientific interest, with other members of the School. The postholder will be expected to represent the University externally, by presenting their work at specialist meeting or workshops in the relevant research area.
9) Knowledge, skills and experience You should have the following: Essential
Desirable
10) Dimensions There are no line management responsibilities associated with this post.
Informal Enquiries Please feel free to contact Steve Renals (s.renals@ed.ac.uk) for informal enquiries.
Application Procedure All applicants should apply online by clicking the apply link at the bottom of this page. The application process is quick and easy to follow, and you will receive email confirmation of safe receipt of your application. The online system allows you to submit a CV and other attachments.
We anticipate interviews will be held in mid-March. If you have not heard from us by then we regret to inform you that you have been unsuccessful on this occasion.
The closing date is 5pm on 26 February 2018.
Eligibility to Work In accordance with the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 the University of Edinburgh, as an employer, has a legal responsibility to prevent illegal working and therefore must check that all employees are entitled to work in the United Kingdom (UK).
To do so, the University of Edinburgh requires to see original documents evidencing right to work in the UK before commencement of employment and this is normally carried out at interview. Details will be provided in any letter of invitation to interview.
For further information on eligibility to work please visit our eligibility to work website
If you are not currently eligible to work in the UK, the University has the authority to issue a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) to successful candidates who meet the eligibility criteria. The CoS enables candidates to apply for a Tier 2 (general visa) in accordance with current UK Visas and Immigration rules.
For applicants interested in sponsorship information is available on our Working in the UK website
However, if you have previously been sponsored by an employer within the UK but your leave has expired or lapsed and you are no longer in the UK, according to Home Office Visa Immigration rules you cannot apply for sponsorship under any category of Tier 2 for a period of 12 months after the date your visa expired and/or you left the UK.
If you are an academic in the field of sciences; humanities; engineering; medicine; digital technology; or the arts and come from outside the EEA, it may be possible for you to apply for a Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa.
The Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa route offers a greater flexibility in your employment compared to other UK immigration routes, meaning you can, for example, move organisation, location and/or job role. By contrast with, a Tier 2 visa where you are ‘tied to a UK sponsor’. Tier 1 provides greater flexibility in undertaking additional engagements, such as collaborations and is intended as a route to settlement. Allowed absences from the UK are up to 180 days per year without losing the eligibility to qualify for settlement, with no restriction on the reason for absence (unlike Tier 2, where any absences from the UK must be for a purpose consistent with the person’s employment or economic activity, including paid annual leave, or for serious or compelling personal reasons).
You would initially need to apply to be endorsed as an internationally recognised leader or emerging leader in your particular field by a designated competent body (Arts Council England, British Academy, Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society, Tech City UK).
Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent)
Once successfully endorsed, you are able to apply for a Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa. More information on this entry route is available at UKVI Website.
Conditions of Employment
Pension Scheme This role is grade UE06 and therefore the post holder is automatically included in membership of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), subject to the USS membership criteria, unless they indicate that they choose not to join the Scheme.
For further information please visit our Pensions website.
Salary The role is grade UE06 and attracts an annual salary of £27,285 to £31,604 for 35 hours each week. Salary is paid monthly by direct transfer to your Bank or Building Society account, normally on the 28th of the month. Salaries for part-time staff are calculated on the full-time scales, pro-rata to the Standard Working Week.
The University reserves the right to vary the candidate information or make no appointment at all. Neither in part, nor in whole does this information form part of any contract between the University and any individual.
The School of Informatics
The University has adopted our vision of the future of Informatics, as a discipline central to a new enlightenment in scholarship and learning, and critical to the future development of science, technology and society.
The School provides a fertile environment for a wide range of studies focused on understanding computation in both artificial and natural systems. The research draws on concepts from computer science, artificial intelligence, linguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology and biology.
More details about these research activities can be found at http://www.informatics.ed.ac.uk/research
The various institutes in The School of Informatics are housed together under one roof in the modern purpose – built Forum Building on Crichton Street in central Edinburgh.
Informatics is one of seven schools in the College of Science and Engineering, at the University of Edinburgh. It is recognised for the employability of its graduates (demand exceeds supply), its contributions to entrepreneurship, and the excellence of its research. Since the first Research Assessment Exercise in 1986, Informatics at Edinburgh has consistently been assessed to have more internationally excellent and world-class research than any other submission in Computer Science and Informatics. The latest REF 2014 results have again confirmed that ours is the largest concentration of internationally excellent research in the UK.
Working within the School
We aim to ensure that our culture and systems support flexible and family-friendly working and recognise and value diversity across all our staff and students. The School has an active programme offering support and professional development for all staff; providing mentoring, training, and networking opportunities.
The School of Informatics holds a Silver Athena SWAN award, in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education and research.
Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014
In the 2014 REF over 95% of our staff were submitted. Of our seven submissions, four of which were as a joint research school in combination with a strategic research university partner through pooling, 3 were ranked top in the UK and all 7 were in the top 5 in their discipline in the Times Higher Power rankings.
As a member of staff, you will be part of one of the world's leading universities, with 20 Schools spread over 3 Colleges that offer more than 1600 undergraduate and 600 postgraduate programmes to over 35,000 students each year. Professional services are critical to this success as well as our world-class teaching, research and student facilities. In fact, we are one of the top employers in Edinburgh, with over 13,000 people spread across a wide range of academic and supporting roles.
As a world-changing, world-leading university, we offer an exciting, positive, creative, challenging and rewarding place to work. We give you support, nurture your talent, develop and reward success and integrate academic, professional and personal career goals, as well as give your career the benefit of a great and distinguished reputation. In addition, our employees benefit from a competitive reward package and a wide range of staff benefits, which include generous holiday entitlement, a defined benefits pension scheme, staff discounts and much more. Access our staff benefits page for further information and use our reward calculator to find out the total value of pay and benefits provided.
The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality. The University has a range of initiatives to support a family friendly working environment, including flexible working and childcare vouchers. See our University Initiatives website for further information.
University Family Friendly Initiatives
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