Associate Professor: Natural Language Processing at Stellenbosch University

Duties/Pligte        

• Teaching core and specialised undergraduate and postgraduate modules across computer science and applied mathematics, including advanced courses in NLP, ML and AI.
• Publishing sustained, high-quality research in reputable international peer-reviewed journals and conferences in NLP, ML and AI.
• Recruiting and supervising postgraduate students, with a strong focus on successful MSc and PhD completion, and contributing to the development of postdoctoral fellows and emerging researchers.
• Providing research leadership in the development of a strong collaborative research group across computer science and applied mathematics, and connecting with complementary AI expertise across Stellenbosch University.
• Seeking and securing competitive external research funding, individually and collaboratively, from national, international and, where appropriate, industry sources.
• Contributing to curriculum renewal and the further development of advanced courses in NLP, ML, LLMs, trustworthy AI and related areas.
• Developing productive research collaborations with other universities, research organisations, industry, government and other appropriate partners, and contributing to relevant departmental and Faculty academic activities.

Job Requirements/Pos Vereistes        

• PhD in computer science, applied mathematics, or a closely related discipline.
• An established, internationally recognised research profile in NLP.
• A sustained publication record over a number of years, with high-quality research outputs appropriate to appointment at Associate Professor level.
• Developing and sustaining a distinctive, internationally competitive research programme in NLP and ML, with scope for foundational, theoretical or mathematically rigorous research.
• A proven record of successful supervision of both MSc and PhD students to completion.
• Demonstrated success in attracting externally funded research funding, either as principal investigator, co-investigator, or a substantive contributor to funded research.
• Appropriate university-level teaching experience in NLP, ML or AI, with the ability to contribute to teaching across Computer Science and Applied Mathematics.
• This includes the ability and willingness to teach at least one of the following core third-year computer science modules: concurrency, computer networks, databases or software engineering.
• Evidence of international academic recognition, for example through invited presentations, research collaborations, conference or professional-society activities, awards or comparable scholarly contributions.
• Excellent academic communication skills in English.

Recommendation/Aanbeveling        

• Research expertise in low-resource NLP.
• Experience in interdisciplinary research connecting computer science, applied mathematics or related quantitative disciplines.
• Experience in curriculum development.
• Experience in industry or public-sector collaboration, particularly where AI has demonstrable scientific or societal relevance.