PhD Position at IDIAP Research Institute

Applications are invited for a PhD position in speech processing and machine learning funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and supported by the the European Network of Excellence in Social Signal Processing SSPNet (see www.sspnet.eu). The duration of the appointment is for a maximum of 4 years with a competitive PhD salary. The position is available from November 2011 onwards. Starting date is negotiable.

Topic description: In recent years, lot of efforts have been devoted in developing speech technology of human conversations including speech segmentation, speaker diarization, speech recognition, speech understanding applied to telephone conversations, multiparty discussions, e.g., meetings, or broadcast debates. However most of these technologies make very limited use of higher-level information typical
of human-human conversations. The PhD student will investigate and implement statistical models with the aim of integrating sources of informations typical of conversations (roles and status of the participants, topic and type of discussion, structure of the conversations, vocal social signals) into the above state-of-the-art speech technology. The work will be done in close collaboration with other Swiss and European research groups involved in the IM2 (www.im2.ch) and SSPNet projects (www.sspnet.eu).

Skills: Candidates should hold a master degree, in engineering, physics, computer science, or applied mathematics. A strong mathematical background, excellent programming skills (MATLAB, C/C++ and various scripting languages under Linux environment), aptitude for creative research and autonomy are expected. Experience in machine learning, audio and speech processing is a plus.

The successful PhD candidate will become a doctoral student at EPFL  and  has to be accepted for enrollment by the Electrical Engineering Doctoral School (EDEE) before joining Idiap. Next EDEE Application deadlines are September 15, 2011 and January 15, 2012. Applications can be done online at the doctoral school website.

For further details about the position please contact: Dr. Fabio Valente ( fabio.valente(at)idiap.ch )