Information for Prospective Students

I'm Recruiting!

PhD Positions Available for September 2026

I am currently building my research team and am looking for motivated students to collaborate with me on multilingual NLP projects. The annual Mila deadline (early December) has passed. I am still accepting applications for one specific position (detailed below) and welcome strong candidates whose research interests align with my work. Positions offer:

  • Competitive stipend for 4 years
  • Interdisciplinary environment at the intersection of translation and linguistics (at UdeM) and AI (at Mila and IVADO)
  • Access to computing resources
  • Collaborative supervision with co-supervisors providing complementary expertise and broader research networks
  • Travel funding for conferences and research visits

Postdoctoral researchers and visiting scholars: I also welcome applications from postdocs seeking collaborative research opportunities and visiting scholars interested in research stays. Funding arrangements can be discussed on a case-by-case basis.

Current PhD Opportunities

NLP for Language Documentation (Chuj)

Co-supervision: Prof. Dr Justin Royer

This project focuses on developing NLP tools to support the documentation of Chuj, a Mayan language with limited digital resources. I expect to fill this position through the recent Mila application process.

Machine Translation with LLMs for Domain-Specific Texts - Still Accepting Applications

Potential co-supervision: Dr Gabriel Bernier-Colborne

This project will combine user studies, evaluation, and development of LLM-based translation systems for specialised texts (e.g., legal, medical, technical documents) containing domain-specific terminology. This project involves collaborations with government partners, offering real-world impact alongside academic research.

Requirements:

  • Master's degree in translation studies or a related area (e.g., linguistics, applied linguistics, computational linguistics)
  • Strong interest in both translation studies and machine translation
  • Technical aptitude: programming experience is valued but not required if you are motivated to learn and can demonstrate general affinity for technology

Priority: For this specific project, I will prioritise French Canadian students.

To apply: Please send an email with subject line "PhD Application: Translation + MT" including:

  • Your CV
  • A motivation letter explaining your research interests, relevant background, and why this project aligns with your goals

Research Opportunities

Students and postdocs interested in the following themes are also welcome to apply:

  • Linguistic and computational evaluation of large language models
  • NLP for low-resource languages
  • Machine translation of domain-specific texts
  • Cultural and linguistic bias in AI systems
  • Multilingual knowledge representation in neural models

Note: Some themes reflect established expertise (computational terminology, LLM evaluation). Others represent interests I am expanding (NLP for very low-resource languages). Co-supervision ensures students receive diverse complementary expertise.

What I Look For

  • Background: Strong foundation in computational linguistics, NLP, computer science, or translation studies
  • Technical skills: Programming experience (Python preferred), familiarity with machine learning concepts
  • Language skills: Proficiency in English and French; additional languages are an asset
  • Research mindset: Curiosity, critical thinking, and enthusiasm for interdisciplinary research
  • Research focus: Genuine interest in language as a central component of your research—if you're primarily interested in hardcore machine learning or the most technical aspects of AI without a language focus, I may not be the right supervisor for you

Before You Apply: Important Information

About my supervision approach:

  • I am an applied linguist with computational expertise. My research requires strong interdisciplinary skills.
  • I actively seek co-supervisors with complementary expertise to ensure diverse perspectives and broader networks.
  • All students must be based in Montréal (no remote supervision).

About applications:

  • I can only respond to applications that clearly align with my research. Review my work carefully and explain the connection.
  • Generic applications will not receive a response.

About funding:

  • I only accept PhD students I can fund. All accepted students have full financial support (you need not secure funding before applying).
  • Students are expected to apply for external funding (with my support) to supplement stipends and enhance CVs.
  • I do not currently fund MA thesis supervision. Task-specific RA positions are occasionally posted through UdeM networks.

Application Process & Timeline

For PhD applicants:

I prioritise recruitment through the annual Mila application process (link), which opens mid-October with a deadline in early December. The deadline for 2025-2026 has passed.

For the translation + machine translation position, I am still accepting applications by email (see position details above).

Spontaneous applications for other projects: I welcome strong candidates whose interests align with my work, but receive too many applications to reply to all. Please forgive me if you don't receive a response. I encourage applying through the annual Mila process (reopens October).

Mila acceptance leads to one of three UdeM programmes (almost guaranteed admission):

  • Doctoral programme in Linguistics: Starting date September; French level B2 required
  • Doctoral programme in Translation: Starting date September; French level B2 required
  • Doctoral programme in Computer Science: Starting date September or January; no French required (though encouraged)

All students are affiliated with both Mila and UdeM.

Postdocs and visiting scholars—send by email:

  • CV
  • Brief personal statement on research interests and proposed collaboration
  • References (if available)

Current Students

Veronika Smilga (PhD, starting Jan 2026)
Co-supervised with Prof. Eva Portelance (HEC Montréal)
Topic: Linguistic and computational evaluation and analysis of large language models

Past Students

PhD

Victor De Marez (2023-2024, co-supervised with Prof. Dr Tim Van de Cruys)
Topic: Bilingual lexicon induction as a probing task to explore cross-lingual lexico-semantic knowledge in language models
Note: Due to my emigration to Montréal, I had to discontinue my supervision. Victor is continuing his PhD at the University of Antwerp under supervision of Prof. Dr Walter Daelemans.

MA Theses

  • Rune Devreker (2024): Evaluation of EN-NL translation quality of ChatGPT vs DeepL for legal texts
  • Jakob Michiels (2023, research internship): Linguistic information for sequential automatic term extraction
  • Gilles Floréal (2021, co-supervised): Automatic term extraction
  • Anneleen Dill (2021, research internship): Multilingual automatic term extraction from comparable corpora
  • Kim Steyaert (2019, research internship): Monolingual term extraction features to link cross-lingual equivalents

BA Papers

  • Noémie Joos (2024): Comparison and evaluation of translation capabilities of ChatGPT vs DeepL
  • Laura Tuytschaever (2019): Automatic term extraction with supervised machine learning
  • Yesim Dumont (2018): On the nature of terms and term annotation
  • Maxime Van Belle (2018): Quantitative research of automatic term extraction