Job Description

Early Stage Researcher (ESR) in FP7-PEOPLE Marie Curie Initial Training Network DREAMS (Dereverberation and Reverberation of Audio, Music, and Speech)

The DREAMS Initial Training Network will investigate the problem of modeling, controlling, removing, and synthesizing acoustic reverberation with the aim of enhancing the quality and intelligibility of audio, music, and speech signals. The ITN will host 12 Early Stage Researchers and 4 Experienced Researchers, each performing an individual research project around one of four themes that reflect the most challenging open problems in the area of (de-)reverberation. The research training will be organized and supervised by an international consortium of 12 leading institutions from academia and industry.

This job opening covers a 3-year research position in the frame of a 3,5-year doctoral program (resulting in a PhD degree awarded by Imperial College London). The main part of the research work will be carried out at Spinvox, UK (Supervisor: Mr. Uwe Jost), and will include two 5-month research secondments at Imperial College London, UK (Co-supervisor: Prof. Patrick Naylor) and KU Leuven, Belgium (Co-supervisor: Dr. Toon van Waterschoot).

Reverberation is known to be very damaging to the performance of automatic speech recognition (ASR) because information from a frame of data is spread into subsequent frames in a distorting manner. The growing use of hands-free mode in smart phones and Skype-type terminals raises the importance of robustness of ASR to reverberation. The objectives of this research project are to develop models and measures of reverberation for diarization exploiting signal classification with data-driven models and to investigate and evaluate single-ended, single-channel techniques for dereverberation targeting telephone and law enforcement applications.

Required Degree: Master Degree in Engineering (or equivalent). A background in digital signal processing is required, as well as strong mathematical knowledge and skills and good software engineering skills including MATLAB experience.

Required Languages: English (Excellent)

Marie Curie ITN Eligibility Conditions:
1) Early-Stage Researchers must, at the time of recruitment by the host organization, be in the first four years (full-time equivalent research experience) of their research careers and have not yet been awarded a doctoral degree.
2) At the time of recruitment by the host organization, researchers 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 reference date.

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