PhD position in Web Information Retrieval

Forwarded on behalf of Jaap Kamps [kampsuva.nl]

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PhD position in Web Information Retrieval
(four years, fully funded)


The University of Amsterdam seeks a versatile, highly
motivated PhD
candidate to work on focused web search. This fully funded
position is
part of the EfFoRT (Effective Focused Retrieval Techniques)
project. EfFoRT is a joint research undertaking of the
University of
Amsterdam and the University of Twente, and is funded by the
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).

* Tasks

The EfFoRT project will develop an approach for combining
multiple
representations of web information in a common framework
based on
statistical language models. In this framework, it will be
possible
to, for example, derive models of the actual language use of
web pages
to distinguish between arts, business, entertainment,
education,
etc. Similarly, it will be possible to derive models of the
structure
of web pages to distinguish between blogs, FAQs, personal
web pages,
cultural heritage pages, etc. The techniques to be developed
will have
to be robust to all kinds of errors, ranging from imperfect
information extraction techniques to imprecise queries
formulated by
the average web search engine user. An important aspect of
any new
technique in a web setting is that they have to scale up to
terabyte-sized collections. EfFoRT will develop so-called
parsimonious
models to derive compact representation and to handle
dependencies
between representations of the data.

* Requirements

Applicants must hold a research-oriented Master's degree
(MSc/MA) or
equivalent qualification, and have a strong background or
demonstrable
interest in:

- information retrieval, especially statistical language
modelling
- web retrieval, especially web-centric retrieval models
- web mining, especially machine learning and
clustering/classification.

Solid programming skills are a requirement. Industrial
experience, or
a track record of project-based work, is a definite
advantage.

* More information

For application details and a detailed description of the
EfFoRT
project, look at http://st
aff.science.uva.nl/~kamps/effort/. For
informal inquiries, please contact dr.ir. Jaap Kamps (e-mail
kampsuva.nl, phone +31 20 525 3011).


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