The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) is seeking for its Language Technology Lab a
RESEARCHER
in the area of speech signal processing, for a research position (Post-Doc, possibly junior) in the DFG project PAVOQUE ("Parametrisation of prosody and voice quality for concatenative speech synthesis in view of emotion expression").
The aim of PAVOQUE is to overcome the lack of expressivity of current unit selection synthesizers by combining the naturalness of corpus-based synthesis with the parametrisability of earlier technologies such as diphone and formant synthesis. PAVOQUE will carry out basic research on methods for the required parametrisation of the key parameters for vocal expression of emotion: prosody and voice quality. Two strategies will be pursued: parameter-based selection of units from the corpus, and post-processing of the synthetic speech signal with signal manipulation methods. This aims to provide a high degree of expressivity while maintaining good quality of the speech signal.
The responsibilities for the research position include, among others, the following:
An ideal candidate will have a strong background in speech signal processing, some experience with speech synthesis, and clearly demonstrable experience with practical development of analysis and modification algorithms for speech prosody and voice quality. The candidate should be an experienced Java and/or C/C++ programmer. A broader interest in issues related to speech synthesis and expressive/emotional speech would be highly welcome. Highly valued personal qualities include team spirit, creativity, self-motivation, and the ability to communicate ideas clearly, combined with a determination to meet project goals.
Ideally the applicant would have a completed PhD degree.
The earliest starting date of the position is May 2006. The initial duration of the contract will be two years, with a possibility for prolongation.
DFKI GmbH is located on the campus of Saarland University in Saarbr죫en, Germany. The university's research groups and curricula in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Computer Science are internationally renowned. The LT-Lab offers excellent working conditions in a well-established research group. The position provides opportunities to collaborate in a variety of international projects. The competitive salary is calculated according to qualifications based on DFKI GmbH scales.
For more information on the PAVOQUE project, see http://mary.dfki.de/pavoque.
Please send your electronic application (preferably in PDF format) to lt-jobs@dfki.de, referring to job opening No. 200602, not later than March 31, 2006. A meaningful application should include a cover letter, a CV, a brief summary of research interests, a statement of interest in the position offered, and contact information for three references.
For questions concerning this job opening, please contact Dr. Marc Schr椥r schroed@dfki.de / http://www.dfki.de/~schroed.