Hi folks,
As part of the D-Real PhD programme that is kicking off in September, I'm currently recruiting for a fully funded PhD in spoken dialogue management for 2nd language acquisition.
The headline details are as follows:
Title: Hierarchical Policy Estimation for Multi-Modal Content Delivery in Virtual Second Language Acquisition Tutorials
Supervision Team: Robert Ross, TUD / Julie Berndsen, UCD
Description:A key challenge in Second Language Acquisition is to give language learners meaningful opportunities to practice and learn while making mistakes in an accessible environment. Virtual characters have the potential to provide tuition through engagement in a one-to-one basis with the learner around experiences in the shared virtual environment. The computational modelling work of this PhD will focus on the application of state-of-the-art methods in hierarchical reinforcement learning methods to learn flexible models that control what the tutor says and how the tutor says it. This modelling will be backed by empirical work to acquire language training data from virtual and physical environments.
If you are interested in pursuing this as a PhD topic, you should apply directly via the D-REAL website
http://d-real.ie/apply-to-d-real/
And list this PhD as your preferred topic.
The application deadline is May 17th.
Best
Robert
