Research Assistant

Multimodal Scene Analysis and Visualization

Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, Data Science Institute

Ref. No. University of Galway 094-24

Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for a full-time fixed term position as a Research Assistant with the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics at the Data Science Institute at the University of Galway, Ireland. This position is funded by Science Foundation Ireland and is available from August 1^st, 2024 to contract end date of July 31^st, 2025.

The Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics (https://www.insight-centre.org/) is Ireland’s national centre for data science and AI and is one of the largest research centres on these topics in Europe. It seeks to derive value from big data and provides innovative technology solutions for industry and society by enabling better decision-making. We support 450 researchers across areas such as the Fundamentals of Data Science, Sensing and Actuation, Scaling Algorithms, Model Building, Multimodal Data Analysis, Data Engineering and Governance, Decision Making and Trustworthy AI. The Data Science Institute (https://www.universityofgalway.ie/dsi/) hosts the University of Galway node of the nationwide Insight Centre, performing fundamental and applied research in a range of research areas, including knowledge graphs, natural language processing, multimodal data analysis, and data semantics, among others. Research outcomes are applied in use cases across a range of application domains, including digital humanities, financial services, manufacturing, health care and biomedical research.

This position is associated with the Insight Research Challenge 4 on Multimodal Data Analysis and will focus on the combination of natural language processing, multimodal data analysis and knowledge graphs for the analysis of scenes in narrative text and for generation of multimodal visualizations accordingly, with particular attention to character consistency.

Job Description:

The successful candidate will assist the PI (Prof. Paul Buitelaar) in developing innovative methods for automatic scene analysis in narrative text and multimodal story visualization by use of knowledge graphs and multimodal (visual and textual) foundation models.

Duties:

• Present information on research progress and outcomes.
• Conduct literature and database searches and interpret and present findings.
• Write up results from their research activity (e.g. as project report) for review by PI.
• Provide input into the research project’s dissemination, in whatever form (report, papers, chapters, book) as directed by the PI.
• Present on research progress and outcomes e.g. to bodies supervising research; steering groups; other team members, as agreed with the PI.
• Attend and contribute to relevant meetings/conferences.
• Keep appropriate records as directed and in line with Funder/University policy.
• Plan and manage own day-to-day research activity within this framework & direction by PI.
• Where appropriate, provide advice and/or assistance to support staff, research students.
• Continue to update knowledge and develop skills.
• Develop internal and external contacts with researchers in related areas.
• Any other duties assigned commensurate to this level of post.

Qualifications/Skills required:

Essential Requirements:

• BSc in Computer Science or other relevant fields
• Good programming skills in Python
• Programming experience with deep learning (e.g. Pytorch)
• Evidence of previously completed software projects, e.g. in GitHub

Desirable Requirements:

• Experience with semantic analysis in textual and/or visual data
• Experience with multimodal analysis and visualization
• Experience with deep learning techniques such as transfer learning
• Scientific publications in NLP and/or multimodal analysis

Salary: Research Assistant salary scale €30,025 – 39,908 per annum, (subject to the project’s funding limitations), and pro rata for shorter and/or part-time contracts.

The default position for all new public sector appointments is the 1st point of the salary scale. This may be reviewed, and consideration afforded to appointment at a higher point on the payscale (subject to the project’s funding limitations), where evidence of prior years’ equivalent experience is accepted in determining placement on the scale above point 1, subject to the maximum of the scale.

(Research Salary Scales – University of Galway)

Start date: Position is available from August 1^st, 2024

Continuing Professional Development/Training: Researchers at University of Galway are encouraged to avail of a range of training and development opportunities designed to support their personal career development plans. University of Galway provides continuing professional development supports for all researchers seeking to build their own career pathways either within or beyond academia.  Researchers are encouraged to engage with our Researcher Development Centre (RDC) upon commencing employment – see HERE for further information. Further information on research and working at University of Galway is available on Research at University of Galway For information on moving to Ireland please see www.euraxess.ie

To Apply: Applications to include a cover letter, CV, and the contact details of three referees should be sent, via e-mail (in PDF) to Prof. Paul Buitelaar: paul.buitelaar@universityofgalway.ie

Please put reference number University of Galway 094-24 in subject line of e-mail application.

Closing date for receipt of applications is 5.00 pm (Irish Time) on April 15^th, 2024

We reserve the right to re-advertise or extend the closing date for this post.

University of Galway is an equal opportunities employer.

All positions are recruited in line with Open, Transparent, Merit (OTM) and Competency based recruitment