Doctoral student in speech synthesis for collaborative robots - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

Project description

Third-cycle subject: Computer Science or Speech and Music Communication

We are looking for a doctoral student interested in AI, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Human-Robot Interaction, that will work in a newly funded project at the Division of Speech, Music and Hearing (www.kth.se/is/tmh) within the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at KTH. It is an internationally recognized research lab in speech and language technology, with a special research focus on human-like multimodal interaction with social robots. The newly started project “Perceiving and communicating correct-by-design autonomous systems”, where the aim is to develop collaborative robots that can perform physical tasks in a smart home environment. The project is financed by the Swedish AI-program WASP (Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program, www.wasp-sweden.org), which offers a graduate school with research visits, partner universities, and visiting lecturers. More information: https://wasp-sweden.org/graduate-school/. The PhD candidate will collaborate with a team of researchers from the Division of Robotics, Perception and Learning (www.kth.se/is/rpl). The overall goal is to design robot behaviours that are not only guaranteed to be safe, but are also perceived as safe and accepted by people. The task of the candidate is to develop control methods for an adaptive conversational speech generation system that can convey the robot's inner state as well as adapting the voice style to external factors, such as social situation or different robot appearances. Matching cues are useful not only in order to reduce human cognitive load, but also in terms of setting the right expectations regarding what the robot can do.

Supervision: The doctoral student will be supervised by Prof. Joakim Gustafsson.

What we offer

• The possibility to study in a dynamic and international research environment in collaboration with industries and prominent universities from all over the world.Read more
• A workplace with many employee benefits and monthly salary according to KTH’s Doctoral student salary agreement.
• A postgraduate education at an institution that is active and supportive in matters pertaining to working conditions, gender equality and diversity as well as study environment.
• Work and study in Stockholm, close to nature and the water.
• Help to relocate and be settled in Sweden and at KTH.

Admission requirements

To be admitted to postgraduate education (Chapter 7, 39 § Swedish Higher Education Ordinance), the applicant must have basic eligibility in accordance with either of the following:

• passed a second cycle degree (for example a master's degree),
• completed course requirements of at least 240 higher education credits, of which at least 60 second-cycle higher education credits, or
• acquired, in some other way within or outside the country, substantially equivalent knowledge

In addition to the above, there is also a mandatory requirement for English equivalent to English B/6, read more here

Selection

In order to succeed as a doctoral student at KTH you need to be goal oriented and persevering in your work. During the selection process, candidates will be assessed upon their ability to:

• independently pursue his or her work
• collaborate with others,
• have a professional approach and
• analyse and work with complex issues.

Applicants should have a Master degree (or similar) in a subject relevant for the research, such as computer science, language technology, or cognitive science. Applicants are expected to have good skills in programming and experience in machine learning. Applicants must possess good levels of cooperative and communicative abilities. A good command of English, in writing and speaking, is a prerequisite and we expect applicants to have a strong interest in human language and communication.

After the qualification requirements, great emphasis will be placed on personal competency.

Target degree: Doctoral degree

Information regarding admission and employment

Only those admitted to postgraduate education may be employed as a doctoral student. The total length of employment may not be longer than what corresponds to full-time doctoral education in four years ' time. An employed doctoral student can, to a limited extent (maximum 20%), perform certain tasks within their role, e.g. training and administration. A new position as a doctoral student is for a maximum of one year, and then the employment may be renewed for a maximum of two years at a time.

Union representatives

You will find contact information for union representatives on KTH's website.

Doctoral section (Students’ union on KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

You will find contact information for doctoral section on the section's website.

Application

Apply for the position and admission through KTH's recruitment system. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that the application is complete in accordance with the instructions in the advertisement.

Applications must be received at the last closing date at midnight, CET/CEST (Central European Time/entral European Summer Time).

Applications must include the following elements:

• CV including your relevant professional experience and knowledge.
• Application letter with a brief description of why you want to pursue research studies, about what your academic interests are and how they relate to your previous studies and future goals. (Maximum 2 pages long)
• Copies of diplomas and grades from previous university studies and certificates of fulfilled language requirements (see above). Translations into English or Swedish if the original document is not issued in one of these languages.Copies of originals must be certified.
• Representative publications or technical reports. For longer documents, please provide a summary (abstract) and a web link to the full text.

Other information

Striving towards gender equality, diversity and equal conditions is both a question of quality for KTH and a given part of our values.

For information about processing of personal data in the recruitment process please read here.

We firmly decline all contact with staffing and recruitment agencies and job ad salespersons.

Disclaimer: In case of discrepancy between the Swedish original and the English translation of the job announcement, the Swedish version takes precedence.