Research Assistant (Natural Language Processing (Singapore Mandarin Usage Dictionary))

Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Singapore; On-site; SGD 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU) in Singapore invites applications for a full‑time Research Assistant in NLP to support the MOE SSHR Thematic Grant project on the Singapore Mandarin Usage Dictionary. The role focuses on corpus construction, speech-to-text processing, and training, fine-tuning and evaluation of computational models for lexical variation and region-specific features.

The successful candidate will work under the Principal Investigator and collaborators for 18 to 24

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, NLP, or a related field.
• Hands-on NLP or ML experience including model training, fine-tuning, and evaluation.
• Familiarity with Word2Vec, BERT and speech-to-text workflows.
• Proficiency in Python and ML/NLP libraries (PyTorch, scikit-learn).
• Strong written and oral communication; Mandarin proficiency to support the project.

Responsibilities

• Support corpus construction, including speech-to-text processing and transcription of spoken corpora
• Perform data preprocessing, cleaning, and quality checks on written and spoken corpus data
• Contribute to training, fine-tuning, and evaluation of computational models (e.g., Word2Vec, BERT)
• Implement models and carry out systematic performance evaluation
• Prepare model outputs for linguistic validation and dictionary integration
• Contribute to the technical development of the online dictionary platform, including database integration and search functions
• Document code, workflows, and datasets, and support other project-related tasks as assigned

Skills

NLP

Model training

Python

PyTorch

Speech-to-text

BERT

Word2Vec

Data preprocessing

Mandarin

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, NLP, or related field

Tools

Git

SQL

Linux

Job description

The School of Humanities (SoH) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, brings together vibrant research and teaching across Chinese, English and literature, history, linguistics and multilingual studies, and philosophy. For more details, please visit https://www.ntu.edu.sg/soh. We are looking for a full-time Research Assistant with a background in Natural Language Processing (NLP) to support the technical components of the MOE SSHR Thematic Grant project, Singapore Mandarin Usage Dictionary. The role will focus on corpus construction, including speech-to-text processing and transcription of spoken corpora, and on the training, fine-tuning, and evaluation of computational models (e.g., Word2Vec, BERT) for identifying lexical variation and region-specific features in Singapore Mandarin. The Research Assistant will be based in Singapore and work closely with the Principal Investigator, Co-PI, and collaborators. The position is offered on an initial contract of 18 to 24 months.

Key Responsibilities

• Support corpus construction, including speech-to-text processing and transcription of spoken corpora
• Perform data preprocessing, cleaning, and quality checks on written and spoken corpus data
• Contribute to the training, fine-tuning, and evaluation of computational models (e.g., Word2Vec, BERT)
• Implement models and carry out systematic performance evaluation
• Prepare model outputs for linguistic validation and dictionary integration
• Contribute to the technical development of the online dictionary platform, including database integration and search functions
• Document code, workflows, and datasets, and support other project-related tasks as assigned

Job Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, Natural Language Processing, or a related field
• Technical hands‑on experience in NLP or machine learning, including model training, fine‑tuning, and evaluation
• Familiarity with NLP models and toolkits (e.g., Word2Vec, BERT) and with speech-to-text workflows
• Proficiency in Python and common machine learning / NLP libraries (e.g., PyTorch, scikit-learn)
• Good written and oral communication skills; proficiency in Mandarin Chinese so as to support the technical components of the Grant project, Singapore Mandarin Usage Dictionary
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively, meticulous with an eye for detail, and excellent organizational skills

We regret to inform that only shortlisted candidates will be notified.

Hiring Institution: NTU