Job description
A Doctoral Research Fellowship (SKO 1017) in Machine Learning in Music Information Retrieval is available available in the research project AMBIENT – Bodily Entrainment to Audiovisual Rhythms, funded by the Research Council of Norway. The project is affiliated with RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion at the University of Oslo.
RITMO is a Centre of Excellence funded by the Research Council of Norway. This interdisciplinary centre focuses on rhythm as a structuring mechanism for the temporal dimensions of human life. Methods from musicology, psychology, neuroscience, and informatics are combined to study rhythm as a fundamental property that shapes and underpins human cognition, behaviour and cultural expressions.
All RITMO researchers are co-located and work in a unique interdisciplinary constellation, with world-leading competence in musicology, psychology and informatics. It is expected that all members of the centre contribute to the general activities and collaborations within RITMO. The researchers have access to state-of-the-art facilities in sound/video recording, motion capture, eye tracking, physiological measurements, various types of brain imaging (EEG, fMRI), and rapid prototyping and robotics laboratories.
More about the position
The candidate will explore and develop novel analysis methods for studying rhythms in long audio/video recordings. This work will be part of the AMBIENT project, which aims to investigate how environmental rhythms influence people’s bodily behaviour. More specifically, we are interested in auditory, visual, and audiovisual rhythms found in indoor environments. This can be the sound of a ticking clock, the blinks of a detector, or the sound and vision of people walking by on the street outside an office window. The candidate will focus on developing information retrieval techniques for audio and video signals, with particular attention to extracting rhythmic features from noisy signals.
Applicants should upload a research outline, with research questions and theoretical and methodological approaches.
The candidate will be supervised by Alexander Refsum Jensenius.
The person appointed will be affiliated with the Faculty of Humanities’ organised research training. The academic work is to result in a doctoral thesis that will be defended at the Faculty of Humanities with a view to obtaining the degree of PhD. The successful candidate is expected to join the existing research milieu or network and contribute to its development. Read more about the doctoral degree.
The appointment is for a duration of three years, starting 1 February 2023. All PhD Candidates at the Faculty of Humanities who submit their doctoral dissertation for assessment with a written recommendation from their supervisor within 3 years or 3 ½ years after the start of their PhD position, will be offered, respectively, a 12 or 6-month Completion Grant. The candidate will be enrolled in RITMO’s Career Development Programme.
Qualification requirements
- A Master’s degree or equivalent in sound and music computing, computer science, informatics, musicology, or another relevant field. The applicant is required to document that the degree corresponds to the profile for the post. The degree must have been obtained by the time of application, and the final evaluation must be available by the application deadline.
- Experiencewith one or more of the following: signal processing, programming skills (Matlab and/or Python), music information retrieval, machine learning
- A background in music or psychology is an advantage
- Excellent skills in written and oral English, see Language requirements
- Personal suitability and motivation for the position
To be eligible for admission to the doctoral programmes at the University of Oslo, applicants must, as a minimum, have completed a five-year graduation course (Master’s degree or equivalent), including a Master’s thesis of at least 30 ECTS. In special cases, the Faculty may grant admission on the basis of a one-year Master course following an assessment of the study programme’s scope and quality.
In the evaluation of the applications, emphasis will be placed on:
- The applicant’s academic qualifications.
- The quality of the research outline and its relevance to the research objectives of RITMO.
- The applicant’s estimated academic and personal ability to complete the project within the time frame and contribute to the research objectives of RITMO.
- The applicant’s ability to complete research training.
- Collaboration skills and an ability to join interdisciplinary academic communities.
Applicants who have recently graduated with excellent results may be given preference.
We offer
- Salary level 501 200-544 400 NOK per annum, depending on qualifications.
- A professionally stimulating working environment.
- Attractive welfare benefits
- Membership in the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund
How to apply
Applicants must submit the following attachments with the electronic application:
- Application letter describing the applicant’s qualifications and motivation for the position.
- Curriculum Vitae (complete list of education, positions, teaching experience, administrative experience and other qualifying activities, including a complete list of publications with links to the full version of published papers).
- Research outline, including relevant research questions and theoretical and methodological approaches (approximately 2-3 pages, see the template for research outline).
- Transcript of records of your Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Applicants with education from a foreign university must attach an explanation of their university’s grading system.
- Documentation of Language requirements
- Names and contact details of 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and telephone number).
Please note that all documents must be in English or a Scandinavian language.
Educational certificates, master theses and the like are not to be submitted with the application, but applicants may be asked to submit such information or works later.
The application with attachments must be delivered in our electronic recruiting system, jobbnorge.no. The application must be submitted by the deadline September 1 2022 (23:59 Central European Summer Time).
Short-listed candidates will be invited for an interview.
Formal regulations
See also regulations as well as guidelines for the application assessment process and appointments to research fellowships.
Following the Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) § 25, Chapter 2, demographic information about the applicant may be used in the public list of applicants even if the applicant opts out from the entry in the public application list.
The University of Oslo has an Acquisition of Rights Agreement for the purpose of securing rights to intellectual property created by its employees, including research results.
The University of Oslo aims to achieve a balanced gender composition in the workforce and to recruit people with ethnic minority backgrounds.
Contact information
Head of Administration Pia Søndergaard, e-mail: pia.sondergaard@ifikk.uio.no, phone number: +47 22 85 44 89
Foto: Colourbox
About the University of Oslo
The University of Oslo is Norway’s oldest and highest ranked educational and research institution, with 28 000 students and 7500 employees. With its broad range of academic disciplines and internationally recognised research communities, UiO is an important contributor to society.
RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion is financed through the Research Council of Norway’s Centre of Excellence Scheme.
RITMO combines a broad spectrum of disciplines – from musicology, neuroscience and informatics – to study rhythm as a fundamental property of human cognition, behaviour and cultural expression. The Centre is organized under the Department of Musicology, in close collaboration with the Department of Psychology and the Department of Informatics.