The Companionbots project in the Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, invites applications for two post-doctoral research scientist positions: one in Natural Language Generation (NLG), the focus of this announcement, and the second in Understanding (NLU). Project Description ================ CU Boulder is leading a large collaborative NSF-funded project, “Companionbots for Proactive Therapeutic Dialog on Depression”, to conduct research on a new class of dialog-based, home robotic healthcare assistants to facilitate in-home, real-time care. The research team integrates a broad spectrum of expertise including Clinical & Psychiatric Healthcare, Speech, Dialog, Natural Language Processing, Robotics, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Human Factors and Cognitive Science. The immediate project will result in enabling technology for home healthcare Companionbots that integrates language, vision, and emotive technology to proactively recognize situations and dialog with isolated and elderly patients suffering from depression. Object recognition and human activity recognition will augment natural language processing to provide current and historical context important to dynamic dialog. An emotive, physical avatar will provide an interaction mechanism with sufficient trust to extract meaningful information that may not be observable in the immediate environment. A central and unique aspect of the Companionbot’s dynamic dialog is the proactive generation of questions, which is driven by a user model including context, goals, health information, experiences, interests, and prior interactions. In addition to providing real-time intervention capabilities, the benefits of Companionbots include the continuous collection of physical and mental health data to improve doctor-patient interaction and enable data mining across patient cohort groups. Natural Language Generation (NLG) Position ================ The successful applicant will research and develop natural spoken dialogue generation components, with an emphasis on question generation, in the context of emotive, companion robots (Companionbots) communicating with isolated elderly suffering from depression. NLG will span multiple genres from casual conversation to goal-directed mental health education and training. It will also explore multiple techniques from more traditional Spoken Dialogue Systems (SDS) approaches to more recent text-to-text NLG methods. You will be encouraged to develop independent research ideas within the scope of the project, will play an active role in a variety of project areas, and will have the opportunity to apply your NLG expertise to a critical real-life problem in a multidisciplinary environment. The Companionbots project includes numerous collaborators. Key to this position, Kathy McKeown, Columbia University, will consult on the Natural Language Generation components and co-advise this post-doc. You will also interact closely with the project’s clinical experts in understanding subjects and developing healthcare-related dialogue strategies, with users to help guide and evaluate research & development, and with project members involved in SDS, Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), NLU, Vision, and the physical & visual expression of emotion. The project will involve significant bidirectional interaction between these constituents and their associated system components. This position is available immediately and is initially for one year, with the possibility of an extension up to three years based on performance. Qualifications ================ * A PhD or equivalent in computer science, computational linguistics, or a closely related discipline * Rigorous experience and skills in NLG, preferably in conversational SDS, as evidenced by a publication record * Solid skills in the application of Machine Learning to computational linguistics tasks, evidenced by publications * Excellent software design and implementation skills * Good verbal communication and English writing skills * The ability to work both independently and in a multidisciplinary team * It is a plus (but not a requirement) to have working knowledge or preferably a publication record indicating experience in usability, cognitive science, user modeling, or discourse analysis related to NLG and SDS The Center for Computational Language and Education Research (CLEAR) ================ You will be part of the Institute of Cognitive Science’s center for Computational Language and Education Research (CLEAR), which includes prominent senior human language technology faculty Drs. James Martin (co-author of Speech and Language Processing), Martha Palmer (PropBank, VerbNet, …), Wayne Ward (an ASR and SDS pioneer, who will lead the speech aspects of Companionbots), and others. Including students, CLEAR consists of about 40 researchers with backgrounds in computer science, linguistics, machine learning, cognitive science, psychology, education and human computer interaction. The group’s research investigates a variety of topics and applications, but emphasizes the application of human language technologies to educational and medical applications. CLEAR is housed at the Center for Innovation and Creativity along side numerous researchers in allied fields including psycholinguistics, cognitive neuroscience, reading, and cognitive disability research. All of these factors make CU Boulder one of the leading institutions for research in computational semantics. Boulder, Colorado ================ Boulder, just 25 miles from Denver, is a mid-sized community of 300,000 residents nestled along the Flatirons, at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Boulder’s citizens report the highest quality of life ratings in the United States among mid-sized cities, perhaps because of its balance of intellectual and outdoor recreational capital. Apart from the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado’s flagship university, Boulder is home to three major scientific National Institutes and numerous high-tech companies. Boulder boasts outstanding outdoor recreational opportunities. It was rated the "#1 Sports Town in America" by Outside Magazine. Boulder residents enjoy over 300 sunny days per year and immediate access to climbing, hiking, kayaking, and fishing within walking distance of the city center. World-class outdoor recreation is available in the 30,000 acres of open space parks surrounding Boulder, Rocky Mountain National Park (just 40 miles away), and 8 outstanding ski resorts (within 20-100 miles). In addition to its scientific and scholarly strengths, Boulder possesses a unique blend of cultural interests. Because of its desirability as a place to live, Boulder is also home to a high concentration of novelists, Olympic and other elite athletes. These groups together support over 300 restaurants, more than 30 art galleries, 4 local museums, 32 movie and stage theaters, and many festivals, including the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and the Colorado Music Festival. Application ================ Please email questions about the position to the Companionbot’s Principal Investigator: Rodney.Nielsen@colorado.edu Rodney Nielsen, Ph.D. Research Scientist Computational Language and Education Research Center Institute of Cognitive Science University of Colorado, Boulder To apply follow the instructions at the Jobs at CU link below to submit your CV (with details regarding research experience), a statement of research interests, links to your most relevant papers, and a list of at least 3 references with email addresses. http://www.jobsatcu.com/applicants/Central?quickFind=66322 The University of Colorado is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to building a diverse workforce. We encourage applications from women, racial and ethnic minorities, individuals with disabilities and veterans. Alternative formats of this ad can be provided upon request for individuals with disabilities by contacting the ADA Coordinator at (303) 492-1334. The University of Colorado at Boulder conducts background checks on all final applicants being considered for employment.