Doctoral Researcher (ESR – AI for bioacoustic analysis)

Tampere University creates a unique environment for multidisciplinary, inspirational and high-impact research and education. Our university community has its competitive edges in technology, health and society. www.tuni.fi/en

The position will be part of the EU-funded MSCA Doctoral Training Network BioacAI (https://bioacousticai.eu) that will educate 10 doctoral researchers in the area of bioacoustic AI for wildlife protection. 

Job Description

Tampere University (Finland) offers a position for a doctoral researcher (an early-stage researcher (ESR). The job position requires conducting research on an individual project at a doctoral student level and studying toward completing a doctoral degree. We are looking for a candidate to pursue the research on project "Human-in-the-loop AI for bioacoustic event recognition”, which will develop active learning methods which will allow training machine learning models on large-scale bioacoustics datasets, while minimizing the amount of human annotated labels. 

 Bioacoustic analysis typically requires large-scale recordings which manual analysis requires extensive manual labour. The doctoral researcher will develop active learning methods that involve a "human in the loop". The objective is to develop bioacoustic analysis methods that enable learning machine learning models for recognizing new bioacoustic classes (for example the voice of a target species, individual, or behaviour) in large-scale bioacoustic recordings, by asking feedback from a human annotator. New active learning methods will be developed to minimise the amount of manual labour required and to maximise the accuracy of the methods, while taking into account the generic properties of bioacoustic data, such as prior knowledge about sounds of interest, and environmental factors that affect the data.
 

The doctoral researcher will participate the activities of the BioacAI network, including workshops and short courses in other countries participating the network. The doctoral researcher will also do research visits to partner institutions of the network, with the goal on applying the developed methods in specific bioacoustics tasks.

Requirements

• We are looking for a talented, creative and highly motivated researcher;
• The applicant must hold a Master’s degree or equivalent in the fields of machine learning, signal processing, computer science, quantitative biology, bioinformatics, bioacoustics, or a closely related field, completed with good grades.
• The position includes transnational mobility (i.e., academic research visits and/or fieldwork).
• Good written and oral communication in English.
• Good planning and time management skills.
• The ability to work independently as well as collaboratively within the research group.
• Proficiency in programming e.g. Python, R, C/C++, PyTorch, Tensorflow.
• H2020 MSCA Mobility Rule: at the time of recruitment by the host organization, the researcher must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of their host organization for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the recruitment date. Compulsory national service and/or short stays such as holidays and time spent as part of a procedure for obtaining refugee status under the Geneva Convention are not taken into account.

Desirable knowledge, skills and experience

       ● Experience of working with audio data (sound recordings) 

       ● Experience of working with machine learning algorithms, especially deep learning 

       ● An interest in/affinity with biodiversity, and the field of natural sciences and biology

We offer

We offer highly innovative programme, that will help you to build a solid fundamental of the area and will put you in an extremely good position in your future career endeavours in a rapidly growing sector.

 The position is full-time and it will be filled for a fixed-term period of three years; starting 01.02.2024 or as agreed. A trial period of 6 months applies to all new employees. The salary will be set in accordance with MSCA ESR rates; monthly salary approximately 3200€ without family and 3700€ with family.

We offer a wide range of staff benefits, such as occupational health care, flexible working hours, excellent sports facilities on campus and several restaurants and cafés on campus with staff discounts. Please read more about working at Tampere University.

Tampere is one of the major academic hubs in the Nordic countries and offers a dynamic living environment. Tampere region is one of the three most rapidly growing urban areas in Finland and home to a vibrant knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial community. The city is an industrial powerhouse that enjoys a rich cultural scene and a reputation as a centre of Finland’s information society. Tampere hosts the Tampere Imaging Ecosystem, one of the top 5 imaging clusters worldwide. Audio Research Group of Tampere University, where the research will be conducted, is a globally leading research group on audio signal processing and machine learning for audio. For more information on Tampere and Finland, please visit:

• https://visittampere.fi/en/
• https://www.visitfinland.com/
• https://www.infofinland.fi/en/frontpage

How to apply

Please submit your application through our online recruitment system. The closing date for applications is the 17th of October 2023 (23:59 EEST / UTC+3). Please write your application and all the accompanying documentation in English and attach them in PDF format.

Please attach only the following documents to your application: 

• A letter of motivation (max. 1 page)
• Curriculum vitae according to the TENK template  and including a list of publications and the contact details of two referees
• Copy of your MSc+BSc degree certificates including transcripts of all university records and their English translations (Finnish certificates are accepted) and Diploma Supplement

For more information, please contact:

Professor Tuomas Virtanen, tuomas.virtanen@tuni.fi