Fully Funded PhD Position in Experimental and/or Computational Psycholinguistics

The research group led by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Titus von der Malsburg at the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Stuttgart is looking for a dedicated and ambitious doctoral researcher for a 3-year position, with the possibility of a 1-year extension.

Research topics that we’re particularly interested in include: Sentence processing in under-researched languages and comparisons across languages (a strong focus of our institute); research methods, particularly eye-tracking, crowdsourcing, and statistical methods; cognitive models of human language processing including large language models.

Your tasks:

• Conduct your own research in the field of incremental sentence comprehension.
  
• Collaborate with a diverse, international research team.
  
• Limited teaching obligations, with no teaching required until summer 2027.
  
• Help maintain our lab infrastructure, organize workshops, etc.
  

Your profile:

• Master's degree or equivalent in Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Computational Linguistics, Computer Science or a related field.
  
• Interest in incremental sentence comprehension in humans and/or large language models (construed as models of human processing).
  
• Embrace interdisciplinary and collaborative research.
  
• Good command of English. Proficiency in German is not required.
  
• Prior experience in the following areas is a plus: experimental methods, eye-tracking, Python, R, data analysis.
  

We offer:

• An exciting research opportunity in a dynamic international setting.
  
• A salaried position according to the German public service pay scale (75%, TV-L E-13) with benefits such as health insurance and pension scheme.
  
• Opportunities to develop and enhance your skills in eye-tracking methodology, crowdsourcing methods, Bayesian data analysis, and/or computational modeling.
  
• Many opportunities for exchanges and collaboration in our friendly Institute of Linguistics and the neighboring Institute for Natural Language Processing
  
• State of the art eye-tracking lab, access to high-performance compute.
  
• Support for personal and professional development, possibility of travel for fieldwork or conferences, assistance with childcare during conferences.
  
• Living in the beautiful city of Stuttgart in the South of Germany.
  

Application:

• Have a close look at our work: https://tmalsburg.github.io/
  
• If you find our research aligns with your interests, please send your application to titus.von-der-malsburg@ling.uni-stuttgart.de. If unsure, feel free to reach out via e-mail before applying.
  
• Include the following materials in a single PDF file:
  
  1. short motivation letter
     
  2. 1-page research proposal
     
  3. CV
     
  4. a writing sample (e.g. MA/MSc thesis)
     
  5. copies of degrees
     
• As the subject line of your e-mail please use “PhD application”.
  
• Deadline is August 15, but the position will remain open until a suitable candidate is found.
  

After you applied:

• We will make a shortlist and invite candidates for interviews (video or in-person).
  
• The start date could be as early as October 1 but also a bit later if necessary.
  
• We will inform everyone about their outcome once the position is filled.
  

This opportunity comes at an exciting time for our group and offers a research environment with excellent resources, a commitment to best-practice research, a vigorous program of research, and strong links to international research networks. We're looking forward to assembling an excellent and diverse research team.

If you have questions, please contact Titus von der Malsburg at:
titus.von-der-malsburg@ling.uni-stuttgart.de