Address
SalaryPosition Details
School of Computer Science
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £34,980 to £44,263 with potential progression once in post to £46,974
Grade: 7
Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to October 2025
Closing date: 13th February 2024
Interviews to be held in March 2024
UK and International travel may be required for this role
Background
The successful applicant will be based at the University of Birmingham School of Psychology and work with Prof Ian Apperly, Dr Rory Devine, and Prof Matthew Broome (School of Psychology), and Prof Mark Lee from the School of Computer Science. The Research Fellow will work on an exciting project led by Prof Apperly (funded by the MRC) developing a measure of social understanding for 15-24 year olds. The applicant will focus on developing Natural Language Processing methods to automatically measure, quantify and validate social understanding expressed through natural language.
Role Summary
The Research Fellow will develop and test an automated scoring procedure to quantify open-ended text-based responses to psychometric tests of social understanding. Specifically, the Research Fellow will be expected to develop and implement a machine learning framework for the given objective of this project. The Research Fellow will be responsible for disseminating the results of the project and will assist the project team in preparing applications for future research projects.
The Research Fellow will benefit from a range of training and supervision opportunities (e.g., Artificial Intelligence seminar series, Natural Language Processing research group and potential PhD supervision) while in post and will work as part of an interdisciplinary team made up of psychologists and computer scientists.
Main Duties
The responsibilities may include some but not all of the responsibilities outlined below.
- Undertake day-to-day responsibility for developing and evaluating Natural Language Processing models.
- Provide regular analysis and updates for the principal investigator and co-investigators.
- Participate in project team meetings.
- Disseminate research findings through publication, posters, research seminars etc.
- Supervise students and junior team members where appropriate.
- Contribute to developing new models, techniques and methods
- Deal with problems that may affect the achievement of research objectives and deadlines.
- Undertake additional research-related tasks as directed by the investigators.
- Promotes equality and values diversity acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture.
Person Specification
- First degree in area of Computer Science or related discipline and normally, a higher degree relevant to Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence or equivalent qualifications.
- Demonstrable knowledge of natural language processing and machine learning methods for text classification.
- Strong programming ability in Python and practical knowledge of current natural language processing, machine learning or deep learning libraries and frameworks.
- Ability to disseminate research findings through publication and/or presentations.
- Ability to communicate effectively with colleagues from different academic disciplines.
- Self-directed, flexible approach to work. Co-ordinate own work with others to avoid conflict or duplication of effort.
In your application please include a cover letter stating how you match the person specification.
Informal enquiries to Prof Lee, email: m.g.lee@bham.ac.uk
We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website .
