2-year Postdoc position in Natural Language Processing on Incorporating 
Demographic Factors into Natural Language Processing Models
Funded by ERC Starting grant INTEGRATOR 
<https://milanlproc.github.io/project/integrator/>
Start: from September 2022
Dirk Hovy, Bocconi University and MilanLP group

Posting: https://bit.ly/3tk5UR6 <https://bit.ly/3tk5UR6>
Application Form: https://bit.ly/3Q5j7qv <https://bit.ly/3Q5j7qv>

Project:
The goal of the INTEGRATOR project is to develop novel data sets, theories, and 
algorithms to incorporate demographic factors into language technology. This 
will improve performance of existing tools for all users, reduce demographic 
bias, and enable completely new applications. 
Language reflects demographic factors like our age, gender, etc. People 
actively use this information to make inferences, but current language 
technology (NLP) fails to account for demographics, both in language 
understanding (e.g., sentiment analysis) and generation (e.g., chatbots). This 
failure prevents us from reaching human-like performance, limits possible 
future applications, and introduces systematic bias against underrepresented 
demographic groups.
Solving demographic bias is one of the greatest challenges for current language 
technology. Failing to do so will limit the field and harm public trust in it. 
Bias in AI systems recently emerged as a severe problem for privacy, fairness, 
and ethics of AI. It is especially prevalent in language technology, due to 
language's rich demographic information. Since NLP is ubiquitous (translation, 
search, personal assistants, etc.), demographically biased models creates 
uneven access to vital technology.
Despite increased interest in demographics in NLP, there are no concerted 
efforts to integrate it: no theory, data sets, or algorithmic solutions. 
INTEGRATOR will address these by identifying which demographic factors affect 
NLP systems, devising a bias taxonomy and metrics, and creating new data. These 
will enable us to use transfer and reinforcement learning methods to build 
demographically aware input representations and systems that incorporate 
demographics to improve performance and reduce bias.
Demographically aware NLP will lead to high-performing, fair systems for text 
analysis and generation.
This ground-breaking research advances our understanding of NLP, algorithmic 
fairness, and bias in AI, and creates new research resources and avenues.

Successful candidates will work actively on novel directions in NLP, machine 
learning, and neural networks for representation learning, and transfer 
learning in various languages, and collaborate closely with Prof. Hovy as well 
as the lab. The candidates will innovate in both NLP and social sciences. 

Successful candidates will have to prove 
* excellent programming skills in Python (additional languages like C++, R, 
Julia are a plus),
* knowledge of current neural network models for transfer and few-shot learning 
and
* implementation tools for neural networks (e.g. PyTorch, Tensorflow, etc.)
* prove strong track record in top-tier venues in the field of NLP/ Machine 
Learning. 
* fluency in spoken and written English. Knowledge of Italian is NOT a 
requirement.


INFORMATION

* Application deadline: July 7 2022

* Skype interviews will take place during July 2022

* Starting date: from September 2022, or any time thereafter

* Duration: 2 years, 1 year extension possible

* Salary: 42k EUR gross per annum (median salary in Milan is 37k EUR). 
Applicants from outside Italy may qualify for a researcher taxation scheme with 
reduced tax load.


HOW TO APPLY

The official application must be sent via https://bit.ly/3Q5j7qv 
<https://bit.ly/3Q5j7qv>

Informal enquiries can be sent by email to Dirk Hovy (dirk.h...@unibocconi.it 
<mailto:dirk.h...@unibocconi.it>).

You can find more information about the call here: https://bit.ly/3tk5UR6 
<https://bit.ly/3tk5UR6>

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