Postdoctoral Researcher
Postdoctoral researcher for the development of speech technology for Dutch Low Saxon varieties.
Main tasks: research, ASR/TTS development, data collection and publication.
Required: PhD in a relevant field and a strong publication record.
Description
Postdoctoral researcher in the field of speech technology focused on the various Dutch Low Saxon varieties, based at the Center for Groningen Language and Culture (CGTC). The position focuses on research into and improvement of speech technology for low-resource languages, with an emphasis on Low Saxon. The position involves collaboration with PhD students and a postdoc within related projects, and making developed technology available for public use, possibly also within the MOI Grunnen | Drenthe project.
Job requirements
- A completed PhD or close to completion in the field of Speech and/or Language Technology, Computational Linguistics, Computer Science, or Artificial Intelligence.
- Demonstrable strong publication record with impactful contributions in relevant journals and conferences.
- Demonstrable technical profile with experience in applying or developing speech technology.
- Skills in evaluating and improving speech technology.
- Motivation to secure external research funding.
- Willingness and motivation to collaborate with PhD students and other researchers on low-resource speech and language technology.
- Sufficient command of English to write academic articles and present results.
- Motivation to learn the regional language or some prior knowledge of it is a plus.
Tasks
- Conducting independent, high-quality research and publishing on improving speech technology for low-resource varieties, especially Low Saxon.
- Publishing research results in leading conferences and journals.
- Collaborating with PhD students and a postdoc working on speech and linguistic technology for low-resource languages.
- Assist in collecting and organizing voice recordings and textual data for the relevant varieties.
- Developing and improving automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) systems and ensuring that they are publicly accessible.
- Contribute to writing external funding applications to strengthen research and personal development.
- Participate in weekly GroNLP meetings and bi-weekly Speech Lab Groningen meetings.
- Contribute to public-facing activities aimed at the Low Saxon region and potentially supervise BA or MA theses.
Working conditions
- Temporary appointment of 0,8 FTE, initially for 9 months and extended to a total of 25 months based on a positive evaluation.
- Non-negotiable effective date: 1 December 2026; end date: 31 December 2028.
- Terms of employment in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, including leave and benefit schemes.
- Year-end bonus and holiday allowance in accordance with applicable regulations.
- Possibility of flexible working hours and exchanging more or fewer hours for more or less free time, respectively.
- Extensive opportunities for personal and professional development and annual funding for conference attendance when a paper is presented.
Description of the organisation
The appointment is at the University of Groningen, within the Center for Groningen Language and Culture, and embedded in the GroNLP Group and Speech Lab Groningen. The university focuses on interdisciplinary research and education and strives for an open, inclusive, and safe working environment.
Within the center, facilities are available to support research, including access to powerful servers with A100 GPUs and an NVIDIA system with an H100 GPU, a Temi robot, and the mobile laboratory SPRAAKLAB. Annual funding is also available for conference travel upon presentation of work.
For this position, the candidate is expected to relocate to Groningen or the immediate vicinity.