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<p> </p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">The UCLouvain is looking for a</span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Postdoctoral researcher in Machine Learning or
Natural Language Processing</span></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Fixed-term full-time (100%) contract for
one year, renewable twice</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">At the </span>Center<span lang="en-GB">
for Natural Language Processing (Centre de </span><span
lang="fr-CH">traitement</span><span lang="en-GB"> </span><span
lang="fr-CH">automatique</span><span lang="en-GB"> du </span><span
lang="fr-CH">langage</span><span lang="en-GB">; Cental), at
the Institute for Language and Communication (ILC) at the
UCLouvain (Louvain-la-Neuve)</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Starting date: September 2021</span></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">This postdoctoral research position is
integrated
within an ambitious research project conducted at the </span>Center<span
lang="en-GB">
for Natural Language Processing (Centre de traitement
automatique du
langage; Cental;
</span><font color="#0563c1"><u><a
href="https://uclouvain.be/fr/instituts-recherche/ilc/cental"><span
lang="en-GB">https://uclouvain.be/fr/instituts-recherche/ilc/cental</span></a></u></font><span
lang="en-GB">),
in collaboration with FEI (France Éducation International;
</span><font color="#0563c1"><u><a
href="https://www.france-education-international.fr/"><span
lang="en-GB">https://www.france-education-international.fr</span></a></u></font><span
lang="en-GB">).
Funding is available for 3 years, but employment takes the form
of
one-year fixed-term contracts. Renewal of the contract is
contingent
upon the realization of research objectives defined within the
project.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">The project will bring together multiple
researchers to develop an automated solution to assist and
support
the correction of writing skill tests for the French language
for
certificate evaluation purposes. Specifically, the project aims
at
developing a system that can (1) automatically evaluate the CEFR
level of writing skills of test takers by training an artificial
intelligence system on data provided by FEI, and (2) provide
various
diagnostic indicators based on pedagogical resources in French
as a
Foreign Language. The first objective is in line with work on
English
aimed at the automatic evaluation of learner productions in
relation
to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) (Tack et
al.,
2017; Arnold et al., 2018; Yannakoudakis et al., 2018; Baillier
et
al., 2019). The second objective is in line with work conducted
at
the Cental on the diagnosis of complexity of written productions
(CEFRLex in François et al., 2014; Pintard and François, 2020 or
AMesure in François et al., 2020).</span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">The tasks of the postdoctoral researcher will
mainly consist in (1) preparing the FEI corpus for statistical
treatment, (2) implementing a Python package for the extraction
of
linguistic (e.g. measuring the complexity of lexical or
syntactical
structures, cf. Tack et al., 2017) and pedagogical features
(e.g.
developmental stages, cf. Bartning and Schlyter, 2004)
correlated
with the CEFR level of productions of learners of French as a
Foreign
Language, (3) developing an AI model capable of automatically
predicting this CEFR level, and (4) testing the system with
human
assessors. The postdoctoral researcher will also be responsible
for
the dissemination of results via scientific publications and
yearly
reports. The researcher will work in close collaboration with
the
other team members to ensure the successful implementation of
these
tasks.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB"><b>Work environment</b></span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">The Cental is part of the Institute for
Language &
Communication (</span><font color="#0563c1"><u><a
href="https://uclouvain.be/fr/instituts-recherche/ilc"><span
lang="en-GB">https://uclouvain.be/fr/instituts-recherche/ilc</span></a></u></font><span
lang="en-GB">)
which is part of the University of Louvain. The university is
situated in Louvain-la-Neuve
(</span><font color="#0563c1"><u><a
href="https://uclouvain.be/fr/sites/louvain-la-neuve"><span
lang="en-GB">https://uclouvain.be/fr/sites/louvain-la-neuve</span></a></u></font><span
lang="en-GB">),
a pleasant and dynamic pedestrian city. The research project is
headed by Prof. Thomas François
(</span><font color="#0563c1"><u><a
href="https://cental.uclouvain.be/team/tfrancois/"><span
lang="en-GB">https://cental.uclouvain.be/team/tfrancois/</span></a></u></font><span
lang="en-GB">),
an expert in readability and automatic text simplification.
Research
missions to Paris (Sèvres) will be organized to ensure and
maintain
close collaboration with FEI. FEI is internationally known for
its
expertise in the domain of proficiency level evaluation for
French as
a Foreign Language and is responsible for the organization of
the
main French language tests, namely TCF, DELF and DALF.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB"><b>Qualifications</b></span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">The ideal candidate will have:</span></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">A PhD in Information Technology,
Computational Linguistics, Natural Language Processing or
equivalent</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Excellent computer skills:</span></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US"> Programming<span lang="fr-CH"> </span>languages<span
lang="fr-CH"> : Python (</span>mastery<span lang="fr-CH">)</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US"> <span lang="en-GB">Experience with
sckit-learn, pandas, TensorFlow, PyTorch or Keras is a
plus</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US"> <span lang="en-GB">Web technologies: HTML,
JavaScript, CSS, Flask, MySQL and PostGreSQL</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US"> <span lang="en-GB">Operating systems: Linux
(server management)</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US"> <span lang="en-GB">Experience in the
creation and dissemination of Python libraries via
Github (or equivalent) is a plus</span></p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Knowledge of the main algorithms used in
supervised machine learning is required. Knowledge of Deep
Learning is a plus</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Excellent knowledge of English (at least
level C1) and good knowledge of French (at least level B2)</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Excellent research profile (publications,
conferences, etc.)</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Firm grasp of the main tools and algorithms
in NLP</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Research experience in one of the following
domains is a plus: computer-assisted language learning,
readability, automated essay scoring, language assessment,
etc.</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Autonomy, team spirit, capacity to listen
and </span>analyze<span lang="en-GB"> needs, reactivity</span></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB"><b>Employment conditions</b></span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">This fixed-term postdoctoral position is
subject
to following conditions:</span></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Fixed-term one-year contract, renewable
twice, for a possible total of three years</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Gross salary is commensurate with seniority
and will vary between 4250€ and 4850€ per month</span></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">This position normally requires a relocation to
Belgium. Applicants from outside the EU are responsible for
obtaining
a visa and required permits, with the support of the
corresponding
department at the UCLouvain.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB"><b>Application</b></span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Application deadline: 30 June 2021</span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">If you are interested in this position, please
send your application to Thomas François
(</span><font color="#0563c1"><u><a
href="mailto:thomas.francois@uclouvain.be"><span
lang="en-GB">thomas.francois@uclouvain.be</span></a></u></font><span
lang="en-GB">).
The application must include:</span></p>
<ol>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">A detailed CV in French or English
including qualifications and required skills, publications
and other academic and scientific experience</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">A letter of motivation </span><span
lang="en-GB"><b>in French</b></span><span lang="en-GB">
describing your interest for the position, how your profile
corresponds to the description of the position and to the
objectives of the project, etc.</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%" lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">A letter of reference in French or English</span></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.11in; line-height: 108%"
lang="en-US">
<span lang="en-GB">Short-listed candidates will be invited to
participate in a video conference interview. The exact
modalities
will be communicated via mail.</span></p>
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