PhD Position in Text Mining for Sentiment and Reputation Modeling at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands

JOB OPENING: 4 year PhD position in text mining for sentiment and reputation modeling (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands)
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics, Econometric Institute, Computer Science Group (http://www.erim.eur.nl/ERIM/Research/Centres/Business_Intelligence)/Erasmus Studio (http://www.eur.nl/erasmusstudio)

KEYWORDS: sentiment analysis, Web 2.0/3.0, topic detection, reputation management, marketing
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JOB DESCRIPTION

In the context of the COMMIT project Information Retrieval for Information Services (COMMIT/Infiniti http://www.project-infiniti.nl/), we are looking for a PhD student to investigate the Mining of Economic Entities. As in the Web 2.0 age people easily share their sentiment regarding companies and products, reputation modeling has become increasingly important for commercial and non-commercial organisations. Due to the huge amount of opinions available through the Web, a manual approach for social media analysis for sentiment mining seems unfeasible, while there seems to be a huge potential for content-driven automated approaches. Through the mining of economic entities and the aggregated sentiment based on textual data, the aim is to support decisions on, e.g., product developments, marketing campaigns, etc. The envisaged prototype for a decision support tool will act as an indicator of public sentiment and trends. In addition, the variation in the dynamics of opinion forming for diverging domains such as economic news, political sentiment, and sentiment towards historical events will be studied.
The PhD track is embedded in the work of the EUR team working on the Infiniti project and the student will be able to collaborate on related topics with PhD students and researchers from other organizations participating in COMMIT.  

REQUIREMENTS

As a PhD student your tasks concern the following activities:
- perform scientific research;
- develop research prototypes able to experiment with the proposed methodology;
- present results in scientific conferences;
- publish in renowned scientific journals;
- participate in the graduate program of two research schools ERIM and SIKS;
- take part in activities of (i) the research group and (ii) the Erasmus Studio.

We are looking for excellent candidates that meet the following requirements:
- a MSc degree in computer science, computational linguistics, econometrics, or a closely related field;
- excellent programming skills (including experience with Java);
- excellent exam results; a GPA higher than 8.5 is advised;
- excellent communication skills, and good proficiency in both spoken and written English (e.g. demonstrated by a TOEFEL score of at least 100 on the Internet-based test, 600 on the paper-based test, or IELTS with a minimum score of 7.5; test results should not be older than two years);
- excellent analytical skills; a GMAT or GRE with a minimum score of 85% (certificates should not be older than five years; for candidates with equivalent certificates/skills an additional test can be arranged);
- you have a creative mind, are diligent, and show perseverance;
- you are able to start in the spring of 2012.
The ideal candidate is interested in conducting applied research in a multidisciplinary setting and ideally has expertise in Natural Language Processing, Web 2.0/3.0, Information Retrieval, Machine Learning, and Marketing. Candidates without Natural Language Processing knowledge should be interested in and willing to acquire this expertise during the project, as it is a crucial aspect of the research programme.
You will be part of a project team, which consists of experts in natural language processing, computational economics, and Web information systems. The work will lead to a PhD under the supervision of prof.dr. Franciska de Jong, prof.dr.ir. Rommert Dekker, and dr. Flavius Frasincar.

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

Maximum employment: 38 hours per week (1 FTE)
Duration of contract: 4 years
Salary scale: €2042 to €2612 per month gross

INFORMATION AND APPLICATION

For more information about this position, please contact prof.dr. Franciska de Jong at fdejong@ese.eur.nl or dr. Flavius Frasincar at frasincar@ese.eur.nl. To apply, please e-mail to commit.eur@gmail.com the following:
- an explanation of your interest in the proposed research field;
- a curriculum vitae;
- copies of diplomas and other relevant certificates;
- a complete list of courses attended and corresponding grades;
- names and contact details of two referees;
- TOEFEL/IELTS and GMAT/GRE result proofs (if available and applicable).

Please send your application materials by the early application deadline of 1 March 2012. We will continue to consider applications until the position is filled.

Received on Friday, 17 February 2012 19:51:49 UTC