Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD studentship, to seeks ways to exploit novel and holistic approaches to evaluation for building machine music listening systems (and constituent parts). A major emphasis will be on answering “how” systems work and “what” they have learned to do, in relation to the success criteria of real-world use cases. The research will involve working at the intersection of digital signal processing, machine learning, and the design and analysis of experiments.

All nationalities are eligible to apply for this studentship, which will start in Autumn 2015. The studentship is for three years, and covers student fees as well as a tax-free stipend of £15,863 per annum.

Candidates must have a first-class honours degree or equivalent, or a good MSc Degree in Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, or Mathematics. Candidates should be confident in digital signal processing or machine learning, and have programming experience in, e.g. R, MATLAB, or Python. Experience in research and a track record of publications is very advantageous. Formal music training is also advantageous.

The PhD supervisors will be Dr. Bob L. Sturm (Machine Listening) and Dr. Hugo Maruri-Aguilar(Statistics). Please see http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~sturm for background. The project will be based in the School of EECS, and the student will become a member of the interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Music. Informal enquiries can be made by email to Dr. Sturm (b.sturm<στο>qmul.ac.uk).

To apply, please follow the on-line process (www.qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/apply) by selecting ‘Electronic Engineering’ in the ‘A-Z list of research opportunities’ and following the instructions on the right-hand side of the web page. 

Please note that instead of the ‘Research Proposal’ we request a ‘Statement of Research Interests’. Your statement should answer two questions: (i) Why are you interested in the topic described above? (ii) What relevant experience do you have? Your statement should be brief: no more than 500 words or one side of A4 paper. In addition we would also like you to send a sample of your written work. This might be a chapter of your final year dissertation, or a published conference or journal paper. More details can be found at: http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/phd/apply.php.

The closing date for the applications is 1/05/15.

Interviews are expected to take place during the week of 15/06/15.