Four studentships at UCL Psychology and Language Sciences and UCL Ear Institute

[Paul Iverson <p.iverson@xxxxxxxxx>]

Four studentships at University College London, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences and UCL Ear Institute

Applicants for the following studentships should send a CV, covering letter, undergraduate and postgraduate transcripts, and two reference letters (sent directly by the referees) to Natalie Wilkins, n.wilkins@xxxxxxxxxx Please indicate in the email which studentship is relevant to your application.

Applications must be submitted by 18 March 2011. Please note that the studentships differ in their residency requirements. Each studentship will cover fees and include a maintenance stipend. Applicants should have a relevant first degree or masters degree equivalent to a 1st class or high 2:1 standard in the UK system.

1) ESRC quota studentship, 3-year MPhil/PhD or 1+3 including a year of masters study. Applications will be considered for students interested in experimental investigations of human communication. Research areas include aspects of speech, language and communication; acquisition of first and later-learned languages; experimental phonetics, linguistics and pragmatics; developmental and acquired language and communication disorders; and impacts of hearing impairments on language and speech.

The 1+3 award will include masters study in either the MRes in Speech Language and Cognition (http://tinyurl.com/yb9p5d2), MSc Language Sciences (http://tinyurl.com/4naauns), or MSc Neuroscience Language and Communication (http://tinyurl.com/lpk5jg). Applicants for the 1+3 award should include a description of their principal research interests. Applicants for the 3-year award must also include an outline plan of their intended research. Ideally, this plan should have been discussed with a potential supervisor based in the UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, such as in the departments of Developmental Science (http://tinyurl.com/6kcywja), Language and Communication (http://tinyurl.com/6eqeygn), Linguistics (http://tinyurl.com/6jyqp7g), Speech Hearing and Phonetic Science (http://tinyurl.com/6gnlvw3), or the Deafness Language and Cognition research centre (http://www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk/).

All applications are subject to the ESRC’s nationality and residency restrictions, which typically require 3 years of prior UK residency. Applicants must specify how they meet these conditions. See http://tinyurl.com/6cumun9 for these and other conditions of the studentship.

2) Deafness Research UK 3-year MPhil/PhD studentship: Pitch perception and production in children with cochlear implants. Supervisors: Dr. Andrew Faulkner (UCL Speech Hearing and Phonetic Sciences) and Dr. Deborah Vickers (UCL Ear Institute). This studentship is open to UK and EU residents. Further details athttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/research/speech/PhD_opportunities/DRUK

3) UCL IMPACT 3-year MPhil/PhD studentship, co-funded by Advanced Bionics:  Contributions of "virtual channels" to the perception of pitch through a cochlear implant. Supervisors: Dr. Deborah Vickers (UCL Ear Institute) and Dr. Andrew Faulkner (UCL Speech Hearing and Phonetic Sciences). This studentship is open to UK and EU residents. Further details athttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/research/speech/PhD_opportunities/IMPACT

4) ESRC 3-year MPhil/PhD studentship, linked to a project grant on ‘Speaker-controlled variability in children's speech in interaction’. Supervisors: Prof. Valerie Hazan (UCL Speech Hearing and Phonetic Sciences) and Dr. Merle Mahon (UCL Developmental Science).

The aim of the studentship will be to investigate, via acoustic-phonetic analyses of the speech signal, the clear speech strategies used by 13-14 year old adolescents when interacting with peers with a hearing impairment. The work will also entail carrying out a detailed analysis of the communication strategies used by the adolescents with hearing impairment both when interacting with their hearing and hearing-impaired peers.  The work carried out as part of the studentship will complement work in the main project which is concerned with the development of clear speech strategies in older children with normal hearing while communicating in different types of adverse listening conditions.

The studentship is available as early as 1 June 2011, and will be subject to a Criminal Record Bureau check. All applications are subject to the ESRC’s nationality and residency restrictions, which typically require 3 years of prior UK residency. Applicants must specify how they meet these conditions. See http://tinyurl.com/6cumun9 for these and other conditions of the studentship.