PhD Position, Conversational Human-Robot Interaction, University of

# PhD Position, Conversational Human-Robot Interaction, University of Potsdam Conditional on the final funding decision by the funding body, applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for a fixed-term PhD position starting as soon as possible (not later than January 2022) with the "Computational Linguistics Lab Potsdam (colabPotsdam)" (headed by Prof. David Schlangen) at the University of Potsdam, Germany. The positions is 30 hours of work per week (75%). The salary is determined by the collective bargaining agreement for public employees in Germany (TV-L 13 Ost). The duration of the contract is for three years (in accordance with Section 2 subsection 1 of the German Academic Fixed-Term Contract Law (WissZeitVG)). ## Job description The position will be part of an upcoming research project on enabling industrial robots working together with humans (cobots) to use spoken conversations to learn new collaborative task. The goal is to build upon a robotic system which has basic capabilities of grasping and manipulating objects and extend it with the possibility of learning new and advanced tasks from spoken instructions as well as visual reference resolution. An important challenge in this task is reasoning about the potential costs associated with taking different physical actions (like screwing a hole into a construction piece) as well as dialogue moves (like asking for extensive clarification) and how they can be balanced to create a natural flow of the conversation. This projects brings together challenges in various exciting areas, such as grounded language and conversational AI. It will be done in collaboration with industrial and academic partners in Germany (Synergeticon GmbH) and France (linagora, ANITI). This position does not come with a teaching load; but if desired, teaching opportunities can be provided. ### Requirements * A Master's degree in Computational Linguistics, Computer Science, Robotics or related fields (defended by start of contract) * Interest in and experience with current NLP methods (e.g., deep learning) and good writing skills * Strong programming skills * The working language of the group is English. Very good spoken and written command of English is required. Experience in one or more of the following fields is desirable: situated dialogue, spoken dialogue processing, multimodal interaction, grounded language, human-robot interaction, robot programming, embodied interactions. ## The place The beautiful city of Potsdam is surrounded by rivers and lakes and supports a wide variety of recreational activities. It is part of the Berlin metropolitan area, one of the cultural and scientific capitals of the world. The city of Berlin is within commuting distance, and many researchers and students choose to live there. The region offers a high quality of urban life at comparatively still modest costs. Handicapped applicants will be given preference in case of equal suitability. The University of Potsdam strives to increase the proportion of women in research and teaching and specifically encourages female applicants to apply for this position. ## Applications Deadline: **September 3rd, 2021** To apply, send the following documents as a single PDF: * Statement of research interests that motivates your application * Curriculum vitae including prior publications (if applicable) * Your Master thesis and/or other writing samples * If available, coding samples or links to your contributions to public code repositories * Scans of transcripts and academic degree certificates * The names, affiliations, and contact details of up to three people who can provide reference letters for you. Address for applications and queries: david.schlangen@uni-potsdam.de -- Dr. Maike Paetzel-Prüsmann Postdoctoral Researcher Foundations of Computational Linguistics Laboratory University of Potsdam, Germany Pronouns: she / her More information: https://www.maike-paetzel.de/