Job University of Amsterdam (UvA) - PhD student 'Search engine evaluation methodology'

The position is in the PROMISE project, a new European FP7 project starting in September 2010. PROMISE is a Network of Excellence involving 10 prominent partner institutions in seven European countries. The PROMISE project addresses the challenges being faced by today's evaluation methodology for information retrieval systems and theories. The successful candidate will work on novel evaluation tasks and scenarios, approaches to automatic evaluation, as well as living labs in which evaluation is being carried out using live systems.

The position is based at the University of Amsterdam. We offer a friendly and interactive inter-disciplinary working environment, excellent computing facilities, and newly built offices minutes from the city center.

Applicants must have an MSc in Computer Science or Articial Intelligence. We are looking for very strong candidates who:

• Have a good knowledge of programming in at least one of the following languages: C, C++, Java, Python, or Perl
• Have a solid background in statistics and/or machine learning
• Enjoy working with large, real-world data sets
• Are interested in working on research problems related to next generation search engines
• Have excellent communication skills both oral and written

The appointment will be full-time (38 hours a week) for a period of four years (initial employment is 18 months and after a positive evaluation, the appointment will be extended further with 30 months) and should lead to a dissertation. The salary is in accordance with the university regulations for academic personnel. The salary will range from €2,042 (first year) up to a maximum of  €2,612 (last year) before tax per month (scale P). Employees receive an 8% holiday bonus and end op the year bonus on top of the monthly salaries. The collective employment agreement of Dutch universities is applicable.

The Faculty of Science at the UvA is one of Europe's foremost institutions of higher education and research in its chosen fields of specialization. It plays an active role in international science networks and collaborates with universities and industry. The Faculty has approximately 2,500 students and 1,500 staff members spread over 4 departments and 10 research institutes.

Each institute has its own research programme, a substantial part of which is externally funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the Dutch government, the EU and various private partners.

In March 2009, a large part of the Faculty moved to new premises in the Science Park Amsterdam; the entire Faculty will be located there by the end of 2010. The move will make the Park one of the largest centres of academic research in the Netherlands.

Informatics Institute

Further information can be obtained from Prof. M. de Rijke, Informatics Institute, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 107, 1098 XG, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; +31 20 525 5358; M.deRijke@uva.nl.