Research Associate (wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter)

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As a University of Excellence, Universität Hamburg is one of the strongest research universities in Germany. As a flagship university in the greater Hamburg region, it nurtures innovative, cooperative contacts to partners within and outside academia. It also provides and promotes sustainable education, knowledge, and knowledge exchange locally, nationally, and internationally.

The Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences, Department of Informatics, Signal Processing (SP) invites applications for a

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE FOR THE PROJECT

“Automatically detecting emotional expressions in dynamic group interactions from audio signals”

in an interdisciplinary research group

-SALARY LEVEL 13 TV-L -

The position in accordance with Section 28 subsection 3 of the Hamburg higher education act (Hamburgisches Hochschulgesetz, HmbHG) commences on 01.07.2020.

This is a fixed-term contract in accordance with Section 2 of the academic fixed-term labor contract act (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz, WissZeitVG). The term is fixed until 30.06.2023. The position calls for 100% of standard work hours per week. This position is also suitable for part time employment.

Responsibilities:

Duties include academic services in the project named above. Research associates may also pursue independent research and further academic qualifications.

Specific Duties:

The goal of the successful candidate is to design signal processing and machine learning algorithms to automatically detect emotional expressions (individual affect and group mood) from recorded audio data. Challenges include speaker localization and diarization (often with overlapping speech), identification of discrete behaviors (e. g. laughter), and expansion to higher, more abstract levels of socioemotional behaviors (e. g., verbal expressions of support or disagreement) in order to detect convergent affective phenomena and emergent group mood.

This project is part of the interdisciplinary research group "Mechanisms of Change in Dynamic Social Interactions", which integrates fundamental science, innovative methods, and applications in psychology and computer science.

The research group is funded by Landesforschungsförderung der Stadt Hamburg. All involved researchers will actively contribute to the group, e.g. via research colloquia, presentations, and interactive workshops.

Requirements:

A university degree in a relevant field. Examples are Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Psychology, etc. Good knowledge of signal processing or machine learning is required as well as good programming skills in Python or Matlab. Knowledge of speech processing and experience with machine learning libraries is helpful. Fluent English, spoken and written, and good communication skills are mandatory. Knowledge of German is helpful; we expect the willingness to learn German for non-native German speakers.

The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg promotes equal opportunity. As women are currently underrepresented in this job category at Universität Hamburg according to the evaluation conducted under the Hamburg act on gender equality (Hamburgisches Gleichstellungsgesetz, HambGleiG), we encourage women to apply for this position. Equally qualified and suitable female/male applicants will receive preference.

Qualified disabled candidates or applicants with equivalent status receive preference in the application process.

For further information, please contact timo.gerkmann"AT"uni-hamburg.de or nale.lehmann-willenbrock"AT"uni-hamburg.de or consult our website at http://uhh.de/inf-sp and https://www.psy.uni-hamburg.de/forschung/interaktion.html

Applications should include a cover letter, a tabular curriculum vitae, and copies of degree certificate(s). Please send applications by April 20th to: sp-office@informatik.uni-hamburg.de (sp-office"AT"informatik.uni-hamburg.de)in a single PDF document. Please start the subject of your Email with [APPLICATION LFF]. Please do not submit original documents as we are not able to return them.

Any documents submitted will be destroyed after the application process has concluded.