Computational Linguistics (Assistant Professor of Teaching, tenure-track)

November 1, 2021

The Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, invites applications for a tenure-track position in Computational Linguistics to begin July 1, 2022, with appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor of Teaching.

Job Description

• The successful candidate will be joining the team of faculty and staff who run UBC’s Master of Data Science – Computational Linguistics program.
  • For details on this program, see https://masterdatascience.ubc.ca/programs/computational-linguistics.
• The rank of Assistant Professor of Teaching is a classification within what UBC terms the “Educational Leadership” stream. The primary responsibilities of this position involve teaching and educational leadership, rather than research.
  • Specific information on the Educational Leadership stream at UBC can be found at the following link: http://ctlt.ubc.ca/programs/all-our-programs/teaching-and-educational-leadership/
• The successful candidate will be expected to maintain an active program of excellent (1) teaching, which will include a variety of courses, mostly at the graduate level within the Master of Data Science – Computational Linguistics program, but potentially also outside the program at the undergraduate level (2) educational leadership, especially in the area of curriculum or program development, and (3) service (typical service includes participating in departmental meetings, serving on select departmental / faculty / university committees, and advising graduate students)
• As this is a tenure-track position, the successful candidate will be reviewed for reappointment, tenure, and promotion in subsequent years, in accordance with UBC’s Collective Agreement.
  • For a general description of the criteria for reappointment and promotion, see http://www.hr.ubc.ca/faculty-relations/collective-agreements/appointment-faculty/.

Necessary Qualifications

• Candidates must have a Ph.D. in Linguistics, Computer Science, or a closely related field with a primary specialization in Computational Linguistics or Natural Language Processing.
• Candidates should have knowledge of machine learning methods and be familiar with at least two of the following areas: computational morphology, computational pragmatics, computational semantics, parsing, sentiment analysis, speech technology, information extraction, and machine translation.
• Candidates should have experience building data-driven computational models of natural language and knowledge of Python.
• Candidates should have experience running programming labs or other hands-on seminars.
• Candidates are expected to demonstrate a record of or strong potential for high-quality teaching, service, and educational leadership that is inclusive and welcoming to students from a variety of backgrounds.

Desirable but not Necessary Qualifications

• Significant experience building neural network models.
• Industry experience.
• Ability to complement the Department’s existing strengths in research and teaching (see below).
• Ability to make links with other units on campus.

About the UBC Department of Linguistics

The Department covers a broad range of subfields in linguistics, and approaches these from a variety of perspectives, with particular strengths in formal-theoretical linguistics, fieldwork, experimental linguistics and language acquisition, and has a long history of work on Indigenous languages of the Americas, with a particular focus on the First Nations languages of western Canada, and African languages.

The Computational Linguistics research at the Department centers on computational socio-pragmatics and computational morphology with a focus on deep representation learning and NLP for low-resource languages.

See the Department website for further details: http://www.linguistics.ubc.ca.

How to Apply

Applicants are asked to provide all of the following:

• a letter of application that describes how they fit the position;
• a curriculum vitae;
• a 1-2 page statement of vision for computational linguistics education (describing, for instance, the applicant’s perspective on what data science is, what they think people need to learn about computational linguistics at the master’s level, what/how to teach in ways that are responsive to industry needs);
• a 1-2 page statement of past and/or potential contributions to educational leadership;
• a 1-2-page statement about their experience working with a diverse student body and their contributions or potential contributions to creating/advancing a culture of equity and inclusion;
• evidence of teaching effectiveness (teaching evaluation scores / reports, sample course materials, examples of curriculum development, etc.);
• the names and contact information of three referees who will be able to provide a confidential letter of recommendation upon request

Please use PDF file format for all application materials.

Application materials (except for letters of recommendation) must be submitted online at https://ling.air.arts.ubc.ca/asst-prof-teach-cl/.

Review of applications will begin soon after December 10, 2021, and will continue until the position is filled.

Additional Information

This position also offers the opportunity for membership in multiple interdisciplinary groups – including the Artificial Intelligence Methods for Scientific Impact (AIM-SI) research cluster (part of the Centre for AI Decision-making and Action), as well as UBC’s Language Sciences Institute.

Enquiries addressed to Dr. Carla Hudson Kam, Chair of the Search Committee, c/o Sav Nijeboer, Manager of Administration, may be sent to ling.admin@ubc.ca.

This position is subject to final budgetary approval. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Métis, Inuit, or Indigenous person. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

Given the uncertainty caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic, applicants must be prepared to conduct interviews remotely if circumstances require. A successful applicant may be asked to consider an offer containing a deadline without having been able to make an in-person visit to campus if travel and other restrictions are still in place.