Subject: PhD studentship position in Speech Quality at University College London From: Mark Huckvale <m.huckvale@xxxxxxxx> Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:16:01 +0000 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>PhD Studentship in Performance-based Measures of Speech Quality Closing date for applications: 1 December 2009 Required start date: September 2010, but an earlier start is possible Duration: 3 years, subject to satisfactory progress Stipend: £15,000 per annum Tuition Fees: The studentship also provides payment of tuition fees at the UK/EU rate The goals of this PhD research project are to develop new behavioural measures of listening effort which can be used to assess the quality of distorted or noisy speech signals. Such measures would provide objective means of studying the effect of communication channels on listening effort, and would complement existing measures such as word intelligibility rate and mean-opinion score. These new measures could then be used to evaluate a range of signal processing strategies proposed to encode, clean or enhance speech signals, which have wide application in telecommunications and hearing-aid design. Further information. Candidates should have a good first degree in Psychology, Speech & Hearing Sciences, Engineering, or Life-Sciences. They should have experience in research methods and have demonstrated success in undertaking a personal research project. Knowledge and skills in speech and hearing science would be beneficial. The studentship is funded by Research in Motion through a donation to Dr. Mark Huckvale. The PhD project would be jointly supervised by Dr. Huckvale and Gaston Hilkhuysen within the Research Department of Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, in the UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences. The student would collaborate with members of the Centre for Law-Enforcement Audio Research (www.clear-labs.com), which is a joint research centre of Imperial College London and University College London, funded by the UK Home Office. Students will formally register for the PhD programme in September 2010. For candidates who can start earlier, we may be able to offer an internship position at the same rate as the student stipend, starting as early as January 2010. Please note the studentship is only available to UK and European candidates. Non-EU candidates can be only considered if they have lived in Europe for more than 3 years on a non-student visa. Application is by a letter of application and a CV, sent to: Natalie Wilkins Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences University College London Chandler House 2 Wakefield Street London WC1N 1PF United Kingdom. n.wilkins@xxxxxxxx Shortlisted candidates will be required to complete a graduate student application form and supply references from two referees. For more details, contact Mark Huckvale (m.huckvale@xxxxxxxx). -- Mark Huckvale, Director MSc Speech and Hearing Science Speech, Hearing & Phonetic Sciences, University College London www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/mark