Recruitments

Tenure-track assistant professorship at LIX, Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS

The Laboratoire d'Informatique (LIX) of Ecole Polytechnique opens a tenure-track assistant professorship with associated CNRS Chair, on one of the following profiles: algorithmic geometry and computer vision; safety and security of distributed and concurrent systems; software engineering for industrial complex systems.

Deadline for application: 25 december 2010. Application material includes:

full CV
recommendation letters
research plan
teaching statement
list of publications
a set of selected publications.

All this has to be uploaded on this web site

Contacts: Olivier.Bournez@lix.polytechnique.fr and Benjamin.Werner@lix.polytechnique.fr

Research

Visual computing

Within the research team led by Prof. Frank Nielsen (nielsen@lix.polytechnique.fr)

Algorithmic methods of Images is undergoing a renaissance with the spread of cross-disciplinary techniques and availability of large online image databases. Nowadays, image processing relies on several scientific areas such as computer vision, computational geometry and machine learning among others. We study algorithmic questions pertaining to modern Image processing such as personalized multimedia search engines based on information geometry, or computational photography: a creative field which aims at redefining the very essence of photography.

Safety and security of distributed and concurrent systems

Within the COMETE research team led by Dr. Catuscia Palamidessi (catuscia@lix.polytechnique.fr)

Modern computation systems are often distributed on heterogenous networks based on several different technologies. Nevertheless, they have to conform to specifications of security, performance, reliability and so on. The objective of this chair is to conceive distributed and concurrent computational models that allow a systematic treatment of such difficult tasks, particularly for what concerns formal verification methods.

Software engineering for industrial complex systems

Within the SYSMO research team led by Prof. Leo Liberti (liberti@lix.polytechnique.fr)

The SYSMO team is looking for a candidate with a research track on software engineering:

formal models of computation (formal software engineering, distributed systems, synchronous systems, logic, semantics, etc.), software-oriented system engineering and architecture
knowledge of an application domain: information systems, embedded systems
research: modelling, optimization and/or verification of software-oriented systems.

Contact: Prof. Daniel Krob (dk@lix.polytechnique.fr)

Teaching requirements

Chair-endowed assistant professors are a relatively new statute which allows for a reduced teaching load, corresponding to 1/3rd of the standard load (i.e. 64h instead of 192h per academic year) during a period of 5 years (which can be renewed once) Teaching will take place within the Department of Computer Science (DIX), Ecole Polytechnique.

Contact: Prof. Benjamin Werner (benjamin.werner@polytechnique.org)

The affiliation of the successful candidate will be at LIX, Ecole Polytechnique (Director ad interim: Prof. Olivier Bournez (olivier.bournez@lix.polytechnique.fr).

URL: http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr

Contacts

About maître de conférence at École Polytechnique

This tenure-track assistant professorship is officially labelled "Maître de Conférences avec Chaire CNRS". Here's a few unformal explanations.

"Maitre de Conferences" (acronyms: MdC, MCF) are actually fully tenured positions; the "tenure track" translation refers to a test period of two years after which the temporary contract is normally switched to a permanent contract. This switch does not involve complex tenure evaluations, differently from what happens for example in the US, but is rather automatic, unless performance after two years unreasonably low.

The French system only has two levels of academic positions: Maitres de Conferences and Professeurs. Accordingly, it is difficult to map the usual 3 levels (assistant, associate, full) onto these two levels. Some people say MdC=associate professor and Prof=full professor; some others say MdC=assistant professor and Prof=associate or full according to a rank internal to the "professeur" category.

After the 2-year tenure-track period, whereas most French universities employ MdC's as "state functionaries", Ecole Polytechnique uses a standard permanent industry contract. This will probably not make a difference to any non-French candidate. Both are permanent.

Because of the point above, Ecole Polytechnique is free to choose the "starting salary echelon" - so the starting salary will be commensurate to experience, and very probably range between 1900-2900EUR/month net.

A "net monthly salary" in France means that you still pay some of the taxes at the end of the fiscal year; this amount varies according to your family status, precise salary level and other factors. If single, foresee *roughly* [1,1.5] x (monthly salary) - take this point as an indication, not a promise. If married with children, this amount will decrease.

Teaching duties in France are measured in "TD equivalent hours". "TD" means "Travaux Diriges"; at Ecole polytechnique this simply means an hour teaching exercises and/or practical computer lab material. Courses are normally structured 1/2 lectures and 1/2 TD's. An hour spent teaching a lecture is worth 1.5 TD hours. By contract, the standard duty of a French faculty is to teach 192 TD hours per academic year. This MdC position has a reduced teaching load for the first 5 years (see below).

About cnrs chairs

Last year, CNRS (an institution which has some of the functions of the NSF in the US) decided to endow some MdC positions with some financial resources. Because this is relatively new, we do not have a clear idea about all the details. Here's what we understand.

CNRS Chairs last five years and are renewable once.
They allow their holders to have a reduced teaching load (1/3 of the normal teaching load, i.e. 64 TD hours).
They may allow their holders to have a higher salary (we don't know by how much).
They may allow their holders to have some research funds at their disposal (we don't know how big or small these funds are).