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Funded PhD Scholarship in Statistical Language Modelling (PhD Studentship)

Thursday, 30. April 2015 - 12:31

Applications are invited for a PhD Scholarship at the Cardiff School of Computer Science & Informatics in the area of statistical language modelling. Specifically, the aim of the project will be to develop methods for modelling the meaning of natural language terms, based on data from social media and other web sources. For example, by analysing the tags associated with Flickr photos, the developed methods will be able to learn that a church is a kind of building, that churches tend to be larger than typical buildings and that chapels are similar to churches. The results of this project will be used to improve methods from artificial intelligence for commonsense reasoning, and will among others enable more intelligent web search engines.

Funding
This studentship consists of full UK/EU tuition fees, as well as a Doctoral Stipend matching UK Research Council National Minimum (£14,057 p.a. for 2015/16, updated each year).

One studentship is available.

Eligibility
Residency: This studentship is open to students of any nationality. Students classified as international for fee purposes have to self-fund the difference between home and international fees.

Academic criteria:
Candidates should:
• either have (or expect to have by Autumn 2015) a good honours degree in a relevant discipline (minimum 2:1);
• or have a masters degree with distinction in the research dissertation in a relevant discipline;
• or have professional qualifications deemed by Cardiff University to be equivalent to the above;
• or be over 25 and have relevant work experience in a position of responsibility.
• The methods will rely heavily on methods from statistics and linear algebra, hence a strong background in mathematics will be required, in addition to excellent programming skills. A strong mathematical background and excellent programming skills will also be required.

Applicants are particularly welcomed from candidates with a background in computer science.

If your first language is not English you must provide evidence of competence in English. Our standard requirement is an overall IELTS result of at least 6.5, with a minimum of 6.5 in writing, and a minimum of 6.0 in speaking, listening and reading.

How to Apply
Consideration is automatic on applying for Doctor of Philosophy studying full-time with a start date of October 2015 via Cardiff University's Online Application Service. In the research proposal section of your application, please specify the project title and supervisors of this project and copy the project description in the text box provided. In the funding section, please select "I will be applying for a scholarship / grant" and specify that you are applying for advertised funding from College funds.

Mark your application “PhD Scholarship in Statistical Language Modelling” in the application form Funding field.

For more information on how to apply, please see the School's Instructions to Applicants.

The deadline for applications is 1 June 2015.

Further Information
Informal enquiries are welcome and should be directed to Steven Shockaert by emailing SchockaertS1@cardiff.ac.uk.

Further information on research at the School can be found on the research pages of the School website.

Cardiff University reserves the right to close applications early should sufficient applications be received.

Source: 
courses.cardiff.ac.uk
Tags: 
Cardiff university
Scholarship
Statistical Language Modelling