| Dear all, We are recruiting a Doctoral Candidate for the “Seeing Voices” project, part of the EU-funded MSCA Doctoral Network project titled Voice Communication Sciences (VoCS.eu.com).
Applications are not open until March 15th, 2025 (apply here: https://www.vocs.eu.com/).
The PhD will be based in Saint Étienne, France, and will start September/October 2025, with a, EU contract of 36 months.
The Seeing Voices Project:
The PhD will investigate the power of the spectrogram (a visual representation of sound) to enable people to see voices for social communication and person perception. The project relies on sensory substitution, which allows one modality (e.g., audition) to be swapped for another (e.g., vision), taking advantage of existing cross-modal correspondences such as associations between large physical size and low voice frequencies, or between emotional distress and vocal harshness.
Using an experimental approach within a bioacoustics evolutionary framework, the PhD will test the extent to which participants can decode information about speakers, such as their physical traits or emotional states, using spectrograms of their speech and non-linguistic vocalisations, and will explore the mechanisms and audiovisual features driving this ability. The PhD is likely to test both typically hearing adults as well those with hearing loss.
The successful candidate will be hosted at the ENES Bioacoustics Research Laboratory in Saint-Étienne, France, under the supervision of Dr. Katarzyna (Kasia) Pisanski, Prof. David Reby, and Nicolas Mathevon. The ENES lab is part of the CNRS French National Centre for Scientific Research and specializes in research on animal and human communication. The PhD degree will be awarded by Jean Monnet University (UJM), Saint-Étienne, France.
The project also includes two secondments each spanning up to six months. An academic placement at the UCL Vocal Communication Laboratory, University College London (London, UK) under the co-supervision of Prof. Carolyn McGettigan will allow the PhD to examine the neural correlates of cross-modal voice perception. An industry placement with Cochlear Inc (Vallauris, France) will further allow the PhD to examine the sensory mechanisms involved in cross-modal voice perception, taking advantage of virtual reality (VR) technologies.
The PhD will be part of the wider Voice Communication Sciences (VoCS) MSCA network. This is a groundbreaking initiative that aims to position Europe at the forefront of Voice Research. Its primary goal is to equip a network of 19 Doctoral Candidates with integrated knowledge spanning cognitive neuroscience, acoustics, phonetics, and computing science, via a unique combination of hands-on research training in labs, with cross-sectorial workshops in fundamental, technological, and clinical domains relevant to voice communication. The PhD student will thus take part in several international networking and training events. See below for more about the VoCS MSCA Network.
Applicants must hold a master’s degree and must not have lived in France for more than 12 months in the past 3 years.
More details including eligibility and selection criteria can be found on the VoCS and Euraxess websites
The Voice Communication Sciences (VoCS) MSCA Network:
With AI-driven advances, the rapidly developing field of voice technology has transformed European life through voice assistants, text-to-speech systems, and cochlear implants. However, severe challenges remain in processing paralinguistic information such as identity, emotional state or health in voices. The Voice Communication Sciences (VoCS) project, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network collaboration, is an ambitious international initiative to address these challenges and advance Europe's position at the forefront of voice technology. VoCS aims to train a new generation of scientists with interdisciplinary expertise in Voice Communication Sciences. The project gathers a consortium of 21 academic and non-academic partners across 12 countries, collaborating to provide a world-class training-by-research program. The primary goal is to equip 19 doctoral candidates with integrated knowledge spanning cognitive neuroscience, acoustics, phonetics, and computing science, via a unique combination of hands-on research training in labs, with cross-sectorial workshops in fundamental, technological, and clinical domains relevant to voice communication. The project's innovative aspects lie in its comprehensive approach to voice processing, bridging disciplines from neuroscience to engineering. The VoCS research program is structured around three scientific objectives: (1) advancing basic knowledge of natural voice processing and exploring paralinguistic information in voices; (2) building on these insights to design more natural and flexible synthetic voices; (3) transferring this knowledge into user-oriented applications in health and forensics, including the improvement of voice perception for hearing-impaired individuals, advancements in forensic speaker comparison methods, and the development of tools to combat deepfake speech. VoCS aims to contribute not only to scientific knowledge but also to the exponential growth of the voice technology industry by creating a network of skilled experts shaping the future of voice technologies in Europe.
David REBY Professor of Ethology Equipe de NeuroEthologie Sensorielle (ENES) - Université Jean Monnet Senior member of Institut Universitaire de France Mobi Director National Geographic Explorer Visiting Professor at Sussex University |