Two Post-doctoral Positions in Psycholinguistics

Saarland University, Saarbruecken, Germany

Deadline for Applications: 1 July 2014

The Psycholinguistics Group in the Department of Computational Linguistics at Saarland University, invites applications for a post-doctoral position ("wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter"), available from October 1st, 2014. Applicants should posses a strong background in psycholinguistics, have published in international journals and conferences, and ideally hold a PhD in a relevant discipline. 

1. Experimental Psycholinguist: Applicants with strong experience of eye-tracking and/or ERP methods for investigating written and spoken language processing are sought. Knowledge of advanced statistical analysis methods (e.g. mixed-effects models), and corpus-based experimentation is also desired. A working knowledge of German is an asset, but not essential. 

2. Computational Psycholinguist:  Applicants with a strong profile in cognitive computational modelling of sentence level language processing are sought, with a background a symbolic, probabilistic and connectionist approaches.

Successful candidates will contribute substantially to ongoing research and teaching activities in psycholinguistics, and participate in developing new research directions. In addition to pursuing independent and collaborative research activities, the position will involve some teaching (1 full course per semester), contribution to student supervision, and some administrative duties. Depending on research focus, a partial appointment in the Cluster of Excellence "Multi-modal Computing and Interaction” (with reduced teaching) may be possible. An interest in contributing to CRC/SFB 1102 “Information Density and Linguistic Encoding”, is also desired (but these positions are not associated with that initiative). The duration of the appointments is two years in the first instance, with the possibility of extension. 

The Psycholinguistics Group, under the direction of Prof. Matthew Crocker, is actively engaged in both experimental and computational modeling research on human sentence processing. The unit has numerous state-of-the-art eye-tracking laboratories, two 64 channel EEG/ERP labs, and modern computing infrastructure. The group's research places particular emphasis on visually situated language processing, as well as probabilistic and information theoretic approaches. The working language is English. Further information about our labs and activities can be found at: https://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/groups/MC/

Saarland University is a leading centre for language research and offers a dynamic and stimulating environment. The recently funded Collaborative Research Center “Information Density and Linguistic Encoding” supports a broad range of experimental, corpus-based, and cognitive modelling research activities, with over 25 staff (http://www.sfb1102.uni-saarland.de). The Psycholinguistics Group is also part of the interdisciplinary Cluster of Excellence "Multi-modal Computing and Interaction"  (http://www.mmci.uni-saarland.de/) formed in partnership with top-ranked research institutions located on the Saarland University campus: Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), and the Computer Science Department. Researchers come from all over the world and the primary research language is English. In addition to the Psycholinguistics Group, computational and experimental research in language and cognition is carried out in the Excellence Cluster's junior research groups of Dr. Vera Demberg and Dr. Maria Staudte, further contributing to a large and vibrant research environment. The Department is committed to excellence in teaching, offering an international MSc program in "Language Science and Technology" (taught in English), and well as a BSc in "Computational Linguistics".

The appointment will be made on the German TV-L E13 scale (approx. 35K Euros per annum, depending on age and marital status). Support for travel to conferences is also available. Priority will be given to applications received by July 1, 2014. Any inquiries concerning the post should be directed to the e-mail address below. Complete applications including: (1) a statement of research interests,  (2) a full CV, (3) two example publications, and (4) the names and e-mail addresses of three referees, should be e-mailed as a single PDF to:

Prof. Dr. Matthew Crocker
e-mail: crocker@coli.uni-sb.de

Department of Computational Linguistics
Saarland University
66123 Saarbruecken, Germany

Tel. +49 (0)681 302-6560
Fax +49 (0)681 302-6561