Associate or Assistant Professor in Speech and Language Technology

Aalto University

Aalto University is a community of bold thinkers where science and art meet technology and business. We are committed to identifying and solving grand societal challenges and building an innovative future. Aalto University has been ranked the 9th best young university in the world (Top 50 under 50, QS 2018) and one of the world’s top technology challenger universities (THE 2017), thinking outside the box on research collaboration, funding and innovation. Aalto has six schools with nearly 11 000 students and 4000 employees of which close to 400 are professors. Our campuses are located in the Capital Area of Finland. With 37% of our academic faculty coming from outside Finland, we are a highly international community with strong academic standing.

At Aalto, high-quality research, art, education and entrepreneurship are promoted hand in hand. Disciplinary excellence is combined with multidisciplinary activities, engaging both students and the local innovation ecosystem. Our main campus is quickly transforming into an open collaboration hub that encourages encounters between students, researchers, industry, startups and other partners. Aalto University was founded in 2010 as three leading Finnish universities, Helsinki University of Technology, the Helsinki School of Economics and the University of Art and Design Helsinki, were merged to strengthen Finland’s innovative capability.

Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering invites applications for an

ASSOCIATE OR ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN SPEECH AND LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY

We are looking for an associate or assistant professor to establish and lead a group of researchers and students within the speech and language technology research area at Aalto University. In this position, you will have a chance to make an impact in academic research and teaching as well as in society for example by industrial research collaboration. At Aalto University, you will have excellent research facilities and opportunities for interdisciplinary research with top-level researchers in machine learning, signal processing, acoustics, neuroscience and human-computer interfaces.

YOUR ROLE AND GOALS

Your tasks and responsibilities include conducting outstanding research and teaching as well as preparing research projects with funding from international and national sources. You supervise and recruit postdocs and PhD students and participate in teaching within the Computer, Communication and Information Science Master's Programme which is one of the most competitive at Aalto University.

SCIENTIFIC ENVIRONMENT

The professorship is situated at the Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics (in School of Electrical Engineering) where currently two out of ten tenured/tenure track professors work in the area of speech and language technology. Academy Professor Paavo Alku leads a group in speech communication technology and text-to-speech synthesis. The group is known particularly for its voice source research and its technical and interdisciplinary applications. Professor Mikko Kurimo leads a group in speech recognition and language modeling. His group is best known for developing successful language-independent models of morphologically rich languages and winning the MGB 2017 speech recognition challenge. These groups are also very well connected to the recently founded Finnish Centre of Artificial Intelligence (FCAI), which is a large collaboration effort for professors in machine learning and speech and language technology in both Aalto University and University of Helsinki.

YOUR EXPERIENCE AND AMBITIONS

We expect a strong track record of publications and achievements in speech and language technology, excellent teaching skills to help students to learn difficult topics, and motivation and competence to start and lead new and highly ambitious research projects aiming at significant scientific results and impacts. The professorship is open for qualified applicants from all areas of speech and language technology but we prioritize such fields, which enable research collaboration with the Department’s current groups in speech and language technology.

All applicants must have a doctorate in speech and language technology (or in a related area of engineering) and fluent command in English.

If you wish to hear more about the position, you can contact Academy Professor Paavo Alku or Professor Mikko Kurimo (firstname.lastname@aalto.fi). In recruitment process related questions, please contact HR Coordinator Saara Haggrén (firstname.lastname@aalto.fi).

READY TO APPLY?

If you want to join our community, please submit your application through our eRecruitment system no later than 31 March 2019.

To apply, please share the following application materials with us:

1. Cover letter

2. Curriculum vitae (with contact information and ResearcherID number)

3. List of publications in which the 7 most significant publications are highlighted

4. A research statement describing past research and plans for future research

5. A teaching portfolio describing teaching experience and plans for teaching

6. Contact information of possible references or at most 2 reference statements

All application materials should be submitted in English, in pdf format. The applications for the tenure track positions are to be addressed to the President of Aalto University.

From amongst the applicants in the first phase, Aalto University will select those who will be asked to visit Aalto University in May/June 2019.

Short-listed candidates’ applications will be submitted for review by external experts (the second phase of the application process).

General instructions for applicants including evaluation criteria, language requirements and guidelines for compiling teaching portfolio and CV are given at https://www.aalto.fi/tenure-track.

Aalto University reserves the right for justified reasons to leave the position open, to extend the application period and to consider candidates who have not submitted applications during the application period.

As a living and working environment, Finland consistently ranks high in quality-of-life. For more information about living in Finland: https://www.aalto.fi/services/about-finland.