Additional information is available on the
website http://www.mpc-vcc.de
Reviewing of applications will commence on
January 31, 2011. The final deadline is March 31,
2011. Applicants should submit their CV, copies
of their school and university reports, list of pub-
lications, reprints of five selected publications,
names of references, a brief description of their
previous research and a detailed description of
the proposed research project (including possi-
ble opportunities for collaboration with existing
research groups at Saarbrücken and Stanford) to:
Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Seidel, Max Planck Institute
for Informatics, Campus E 1 4, 66123 Saarbrücken,
Germany, Email: [e-mail]

max Planck institute for software
systems (mPi-s Ws)
Tenure-track openings

Applications are invited for tenure-track and tenured faculty positions in all areas related to the study, design, and engineering of software systems. These areas include, but are not limited to, data and information management, programming systems, software verification, parallel, distributed and networked systems, and embedded systems, as well as cross-cutting areas like security, machine learning, usability, and social aspects of software systems. A doctoral degree in computer science or related areas and an outstanding research record are required. Successful candidates are expected to build a team and pursue a highly visible research agenda, both independently and in collaboration with other groups. Senior candidates must have demonstrated leadership abilities and recognized international stature.

MPI-SWS, founded in 2005, is part of a network of eighty Max Planck Institutes, Germany’s premier basic research facilities. MPIs have an established record of world-class, foundational research in the fields of medicine, biology, chemistry, physics, technology and humanities. Since 1948, MPI researchers have won 17 Nobel prizes. MPI-SWS aspires to meet the highest standards of excellence and international recognition with its research in software systems.

To this end, the institute offers a unique environment that combines the best aspects of a university department and a research laboratory: a) Faculty receive generous base funding to build and lead a team of graduate students and postdocs. They have full academic freedom and publish their research results freely. b) Faculty supervise doctoral theses, and have the opportunity to teach graduate and undergraduate courses. c) Faculty are provided with outstanding technical and administrative support facilities as well as internationally competitive compensation packages.

MPI-SWS currently has 8 tenured and tenure-track faculty, and is funded to support 17 faculty and about 100 doctoral and post-doctoral positions. Additional growth through outside funding is possible. We maintain an open, international and diverse work environment and seek applications from outstanding researchers regardless of national origin or citizenship. The working language is English; knowledge of the German language is not required for a successful career at the institute.

Saarland University is seeking to establish several

Junior Research Groups (W1/W2)

within the Cluster of Excellence “Multimodal Computing and Interaction” which was established by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the framework of the German Excellence Initiative.

The term “multimodal” describes the different types of digital information such as text, speech, images, video, graphics, and high-dimensional data, and the way it is perceived and communicated, particularly through vision, hearing, and human expression. The challenge is now to organize, understand, and search this multimodal information in a robust, efficient and intelligent way, and to create dependable systems that allow natural and intuitive multimodal interaction. We are looking for highly motivated young researchers with a background in the research areas of the cluster, including algorithmic foundations, secure and autonomous networked systems, open science web, information processing in the life sciences, visual computing, large-scale virtual environments, synthetic virtual characters, text and speech processing and multimodal dialog systems. Additional information on the Cluster of Excellence is available on http://www.mmci.uni-saarland.de. Group leaders will receive junior faculty status at Saarland University, including the right to supervise Bachelor, Master and PhD students. Positions are limited to five years.

Applicants for W1 positions (phase I of the program) must have completed an outstanding PhD. Upon successful evaluation after two years, W1 group leaders are eligible for promotion to W2. Direct applicants for W2 positions (phase II of the program) must have completed a postdoc stay and must have demonstrated outstanding research potential and the ability to successfully lead their own research group. Junior research groups are equipped with a budget of 80k to 100k Euros per year to cover research personnel and other costs.

Saarland University has leading departments in computer science and computational linguistics, with more than 200 PhD students working on topics related to the cluster (see http://www.informatik-saarland.de for additional information). The German Excellence Initiative recently awarded multi-million grants to the Cluster of Excellence “Multimodal Computing and Interaction” as well as to the “Saarbrücken Graduate School of Computer Science”. An important factor to this success were the close ties to the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), and the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems which are co-located on the same campus.

Candidates should submit their application (curriculum vitae, photograph, list of publications, short research plan, copies of degree certificates, copies of the five most important publications, list of five references) to Conny Liegl, Cluster of Excellence, Campus E1 7, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany. Please, also send your application as a single PDF file to [e-mail].

The review of applications will begin on February 18, 2011: all applicants are strongly encouraged to submit applications by that date. Final decisions will be made following a candidate symposium that will be held in the week of March 21 – 25, 2011.

Saarland University is an equal opportunity employer. In accordance with its policy of increasing the proportion of women in this type of employment, the University actively encourages applications from women. For candidates with equal qualification, preference will be given to people with physical disabilities.