Job: Two PhD Studentships in University College London

Two PhD Studentships in Information Retrieval - University College London
and Microsoft Research, Cambridge

We are seeking two outstanding PhD students to join our team in the area of
Information Retrieval.

One of the students will be jointly supervised by Jun Wang of University
College London (?http://www.adastral.ucl.ac.uk/~junwang) and Stephen
Robertson of Microsoft Research Cambridge (
http://research.microsoft.com/users/robertson/).  The project will focus on
developing formal probabilistic information retrieval (Web
search) models. The abstract of the project can be found at
http://www.adastral.ucl.ac.uk/~junwang/UnifiedIRModel.html


Another student will be supervised by Ingemar Cox (
http://www.adastral.ucl.ac.uk/~icox/). The project will focus on
understanding resource-constrained information retrieval.

University College London (UCL) is a leading UK research university.
It is regularly ranked in the top-5 universities in the UK. The Department
of Computer Science at UCL is one of the largest Computer Science
departments in the UK, and UCL's Adastral Park postgraduate campus has been
established by UCL as an independent research and post-graduate teaching
institute at Adastral Park, Ipswich. The campus provides a focus for
research interactions between UCL and companies in the Ipswich-Cambridge
corridor in the information and communication sciences. It supports a wide
variety of research within the broad area of understanding and facilitating
Web transactions, and particularly has put much effort into IR research
(one of the five research themes). The proposed Ph.D. student will have a
comfortable and supportive working environment to conduct IR research. The
geographical location of the campus makes the student easy to visit
Microsoft Research, Cambridge.

Requirements
The candidates will have completed a Masters degree or will have at least
an Honours degree-level education in computer science, electrical
engineering or a related field.
We expect the students are highly motivated and have a strong background in
machine learning, statistics or mathematics.

Financial Arrangements
The students will be supported by the Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship
programme. The detailed information about the programme and the recipients
of last year's award can be found at
http://research.microsoft.com/aboutmsr/jobs/fellowships/scholars_europe.aspx

The two students should receive at least the minimum PhD stipend. For the
academic year 2007/08 this is £12,600 per person. In addition to the
stipend, the (overseas) tuition fee will be paid for the PhD study in UCL.

Location
The research will be carried out within either the Bloomsbury campus in
London, or Adastral Park Campus, Ipswich (see also
http://www.adastral.ucl.ac.uk/). Ipswich (http://www.ipswich.gov.uk/.) is
in the heart of East Anglia and the heart of Europe. It is the regional
centre for business, shopping, sport and entertainment.
Ipswich is home to IP-City and is one pole of the Cambridge/Ipswich Hi-Tech
Corridor. It is proud of its 800-year Royal Charter and its long maritime
tradition and also possesses a magnificent heritage and fine parks.

Information and application
In order to be considered for the studentship you need to fill in an
application form obtainable from
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate-study/application-admission

where guidelines can also be found. Candidates should make two sets of the
application form, sending one copy to UCL Registry in London (as indicated
on the website) and one copy direct to Mrs C Churcher, UCL Adastral Park
Postgraduate Campus, Ross Building PP3, Adastral Park, Martlesham Heath,
Suffolk IP5 3RE, UK or to [email protected]
Informal enquiries may also be directed to Jun Wang
[email protected] (telephone    +44 1473 663732).

The closing date for applications is 1st March 2007.