The University of Groningen offers a four-year PhD student scholarship to complete a dissertation on a topic related to “speech technology”. The PhD candidate will be supervised by Dr Matt Coler alongside other experts (depending on the topic) and will be a member of the “Language, Technology & Culture” department which is composed of a diverse team of PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and visiting scholars.

The PhD candidate will be enrolled in the Graduate School Campus Fryslân (GSCF) and can benefit from affiliations at other faculties at the University of Groningen (Linguistics, A.I., Computer Sciences, among others). If interested, the PhD candidate could also have a role to play in the new Master’s program in Voice Technology.

Topics of interest for the doctoral research include (but are not limited to):
● Automatic speech recognition: low resource and multilingual speech recognition, code switched speech recognition, speech recognition in adverse environments (noise robust and reverberant), recognition of atypical/pathological speech, effect of speaking rate and disfluencies in recognition of multi-style/modes of speech (read, spontaneous, conversational).
● Language and speaker identification (incl. language and dialect verification and diarization, etc.), speaker-state recognition (incl. speaker states and traits identification, intoxication detection, etc), anti-spoofing in speaker verification (mimicked, replayed or synthesized speech).
● Speech synthesis: Voice modification and conversion, increasing naturalness, etc.
● Paralinguistic, suprasegmental, and/or acoustic-related issues: Techniques to analyze other aspects relating to voice including e.g. vocal fry, laryngealization, coughs, filled pauses, laughter, etc. and/or acoustic-related issues (acoustic event detection, acoustic scene classification, etc.).
● Voice technology for multilingual and lesser-resourced languages: Alongside the aforementioned topics, of particular interest are proposals that involve multilingual contexts or minoritized / lesser-resourced languages.

Interdisciplinary proposals that involve expertise from social sciences (linguistics, psychology, anthropology) and physical / data sciences (A.I., data science, acoustics, physiology) and/or which could connect to initiatives outside of academia, including those in the private sector (serious games, speech and language pathology) or the public sector (education, healthcare) are very welcome.

The candidate should have the following qualifications:

● Master’s degree in a relevant academic field, e.g. Computer Science, AI, Linguistics, Speech processing, etc
● demonstrable affinity with qualitative and quantitative research methods
● programming skills and basic knowledge in machine learning are an advantage
● research experience is an asset
● highly developed conceptual capacity and analytical skills
● very good record of undergraduate and graduate studies
● very good command of spoken and written English. Dutch proficiency is an asset
● very good individual and collaborative working skills
● excellent presentation skills (or the willingness to learn)
● demonstrable planning and organizational skills (or the willingness to learn
● strong motivation to complete a PhD dissertation in four years.

Fixed-term contract: 48 months.

The PhD Scholarship student will be enrolled in the PhD Scholarship Programme and receives a scholarship of € 2,249 per month (gross) from the University of Groningen. For more information on the RUG PhD scholarship programme and its benefits please check the website at https://www.rug.nl/education/phd-programmes/phd-scholarship-programme/conditions-application/.

The PhD Scholarship contract is offered for four years. Prolongation of the contract after year 1 is contingent on sufficient progress in the first year to indicate that a successful completion of the PhD thesis within the contract period is to be expected.

A PhD training programme is part of the agreement and the successful candidate will be enrolled in the Graduate School of the Faculty. As part of the programme, the PhD student will take part in the Career Perspectives Series, which provides a thorough preparation on the career after the PhD, inside or outside academia. During the course of the doctorate, the student will develop research and teaching competencies as well as leadership skills. For this, the PhD students will receive a tailor-made programme from the GSCF.

The intended starting date is 1 February 2022. An earlier start is possible by mutual consent.

Campus Fryslân

Founded in 1614, the University of Groningen enjoys an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative institution of higher education offering high-quality teaching and research. Flexible study programmes and academic career opportunities in a wide variety of disciplines encourage the 31,000 students and researchers alike to develop their own individual talents. As one of the best research universities in Europe, the University of Groningen has joined forces with other top universities and networks worldwide to become a truly global centre of knowledge.

Campus Fryslân is the ambitious eleventh and newest faculty of the University of Groningen, located in Leeuwarden. Campus Fryslân is an interdisciplinary faculty that works closely together with regional, national and international partners on worldwide (sustainability) challenges and local solutions. The sustainable development goals of the United Nations thus serve as an important guideline.

We offer bachelor’s, master’s and PhD degree programmes. The research institute covers six research departments: Governance & Innovation, Global and Local Governance, Sustainable Entrepreneurship in a Circular Economy, Knowledge Infrastructures, Language, Technology & Culture and Sustainable Heath. In the summer of 2019, Campus Fryslân moved to the new faculty building De Beurs: the first all-electric, monumental educational building in the Netherlands.