Connectionists: PhD positions on Reservoir Computing

[Benjamin Schrauwen]

Job opening for 2 PhD positions
at  the ELectronics and Information Systems department, Ghent 
University, Belgium

Liquid State Machines, Echo State Networks and Back-Propagation
Decorrelation (generally termed Reservoir Computing) all use a random, 
fixed recurrent network of neurons as dynamic reservoir which makes a 
spatio-temporal pre-mapping of the input data. This pre-mapped 
representation is processed by simple linear techniques such as linear
regression. Only this last, linear part needs to be trained. This way 
the good temporal processing properties of recurrent networks get 
combined with the ease of training of linear techniques. The method
has been applied successfully to speech recognition, robotics and system
modelling.

The faculty of Engineering at Ghent University has possible funding
available for PhD students (two four year positions) in two projects 
concerning research on Reservoir Computing. One concerns the application 
of Reservoir Computing to the detection of epileptic seizures using
novel sensor techniques, the other investigates the use of nano-photonic
devices instead of software-simulated neural networks as reservoirs.

We offer an exciting job in a stimulating environment, with a nice
amount of flexibility and academic liberty. Our research group has a 
thorough expertise in the research area.

Applicants should have a Masters degree in Engineering,  Informatics,
Mathematics or Physics/Photonics. The ideal candidates should have a 
background or previous experience in neural networks, pattern 
classification or AI.

For more information or to send your CV and a short motivation text,
mail to "Benjamin dot Schrauwen at UGent.be".