PD1 - Postdoctoral Researcher in Multimodal Motion Capture and Spatiotemporal Modelling of Language (TRAD-INV-INDF-2026-03)

About this position

Note: This page is for informative purposes only. The official call (particularly, the legal requirements for candidates) and all information related to the selection process (admission, short list, final result) is published in the

Department’s website.

Offer description:

The Prosodic and Gestural Studies Research Group (GrEPG) in the Department of Translation and Language Sciences at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) invites applications for a fully funded 4-year postdoctoral position within the ERC Advanced Grant PROSODY-SENSES:

Prosody across senses: Testing a reconceptualization of prosody as a modality-neutral component of language governing spoken

, visual and tactile signals, led by Prof. Pilar Prieto.

PD1: SpatioTemporal Coordination across Sensory Modalities in Spoken Language

The successful candidate will play a leading role in investigating how prosodic structure is implemented across spoken, sign, and tactile sign languages. The project aims to determine the extent to which prominence and phrasing are realized through modality-specific sensory signals while being governed by shared modality-neutral organizational principles.

The postdoctoral researcher will lead the comparative analysis of prosodic structure across spoken, visual, and tactile language modalities, contributing to the theoretical development of the Modality-Neutral Prosodic Framework (MNPF). They will work closely with the PI and the multidisciplinary research team to develop experimental paradigms and analytical methods that integrate spoken language, sign language, and tactile sign language data. Particular emphasis will be placed on understanding how prosodic organization adapts across sensory channels while preserving common linguistic functions.

The position offers an outstanding opportunity to contribute to a new theoretical understanding of prosody as a modality-neutral component of human language while working in a highly interdisciplinary environment spanning linguistics, cognitive science, sign language linguistics, haptics, and multimodal communication.

Main Duties

Develop and lead an independent research programme

within the scientific framework of

PROSODY-SENSES

, addressing the multimodal implementation of prosody across spoken, signed, and tactile language modalities.

Design and conduct innovative experimental studies

investigating the spatiotemporal organization of prosodic structure across sensory modalities, contributing to the theoretical development of the Modality-Neutral Prosodic Framework.

Lead the development of computational and statistical models

of the spatiotemporal coordination of prosody across spoken, visual, and tactile modalities, integrating speech, bodily movement, and tactile interaction data.

Publish high-quality research

in leading international peer-reviewed journals, present findings at major international conferences, and actively contribute to the international visibility of the ERC project.

Develop new interdisciplinary collaborations

within and beyond the consortium, contributing to the scientific leadership and long-term research agenda of PROSODY-SENSES.

Co-supervise PhD students

, providing scientific and methodological guidance in experimental design, quantitative analyses, multimodal data collection, and manuscript preparation.

Contribute to the design and implementation of multimodal production experiments

, including the development of experimental protocols and support for motion-capture and tactile recording sessions.

Develop and optimize analysis workflows

for three-dimensional motion-capture data, synchronized audiovisual recordings, tactile recordings, and multimodal linguistic annotations.

Contribute to the development of annotation protocols, computational tools, and reproducible analytical pipelines

for multimodal datasets.

Support research data management

across the ERC project by contributing to documentation, metadata standards, quality control, versioning, and FAIR data practices.

Contribute to the scientific coordination of PROSODY-SENSES

, including collaborative publications, workshops, training activities, outreach, and dissemination.