Scholarships:
Master's and PhD in Natural Language Processing

The Natural Language Processing Laboratory of the Center for Computing Research (CIC) of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), Mexico City, Mexico, offers a limited number of scholarships to international students for earning Master's or PhD degree in Computer Science with a thesis in the area of Natural Language Processing. After earning a Master's degree, the students are encouraged to apply for the PhD level, and (if they pass) the scholarship is extended accordingly.

Topics include, but are not limited to, all areas of Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computational Linguistics (CL), Human Language Technologies (HLT), and related areas. See our publications and defended theses for examples of our research interests.

Amount of scholarship: Master's 550 USD / month approx., PhD: 750 USD / month. Given the prices in Mexico City, this is quite enough for normal living (and renting a room).

Duration: Master's: 2 years, PhD: 3 years, with possibility of extension. We have no undergrad level, sorry.

Type of program: Research. Both programs are oriented to scientific research and publication rather than to improving your programming skills. Most of our graduates are employed in academia and (governmentally funded) research.

Why study at CIC?

• Certification: Our Master's program is one of very few programs in Mexico certified by the Government as an international excellence program.
• Elite: CIC is an elite research center, the leading national research center in Computer Science.
• Future: Almost all of our PhD graduates are lecturers or researchers in good universities, some with  post-doctorate degree. Most of them have achieved for their productivity an important certification of  National Researcher of Mexico. Many of our Master's graduates continue to study for  PhD degree, some with us and some in Europe, e.g., in UK or France.
• Quality: Many of our students received  important awards; three of them received a  Gold Medal from the hands of the President of the country.
• Advisors: Our professors have excellent publication record, are academicians of the Mexican Academy of Science and  National Researchers of Mexico of excellence levels 3 (highest) or 2 (second highest), and have also received important awards.
• Funding: our students are provided funding for attending conferences (on the national territory and in some cases abroad), as well as for publishing in top journals that require payment.
• Activities: Our students participate in organization of large international conferences such as CICLing or MICAI and help their advisors in other important activities, such as editing prestigious journals. Mexico has only two computer science journals certified by the Government for academic excellence: CyS and Polibits, and the Editors-in-Chief of both of them are professors of our Laboratory.
• Ambience: We have an international team of professors and students. Our program has professors from and our NLP group has or has had students from . Our professors are supervising or have supervised theses in .
• Friendly atmosphere: our professors are helpful and our students are friendly; we all are good friends.
• Freedom: Our students choose the topic they like; we will adapt to your interests. We are also liberal as to attending, days or exams, etc.
• Tourism: Mexico is a very interesting and exotic country, rich in history, culture, and nature. Come to see something different from your home place!
• Summer: in the middle of winter frosts in the North, you will enjoy sun and palms. Never cold and almost never too hot..
• Need more reasons? Come and find out for yourself.

Requirements

• Strong interest, self-motivation, independence in learning and research.
• Research interest specifically in Natural Language Processing or related areas, according to the research topic you suggest.
• Absolute determination to finish the program: once admitted, you must finish the program and receive the degree.
• Programming or scripting skills (application level) are required, though in case of PhD could be waived, with willing to self-learn programming. Willing to learn Perl is required.
• Familiarity with basic computer science, such as data structures, algorithms, programming languages; good knowledge of programming techniques is a big plus.
• Good knowledge of English: reading and writing in scientific-technical domain.
• Willing to publish scientific papers in top journals. Willing to acquire writing and publication culture. For PhD, publication in ISI JCR-indexed journals is required for graduation.
• Willing to participate in the activities of the Lab, such as organization of conferences, and in general willing to help is a plus.
• For Master's, willing to learn Spanish is required. Knowing Spanish in advance is not required but is a plus. For PhD, willing to learn Spanish is a plus, though is not strictly required.
• Finished previous degree: for Master's, finished undergraduate* degree; for PhD, finished Master's degree.
• Patience: applying for an international program may require considerable paperwork, including certified translations, etc.

* Admission to our Master's program requires a degree equivalent to the licentiate in Mexico, which usually takes 3–5 years to complete and is the highest degree prior to Master's in your country. A degree with less than 3 years of training is usually inadequate. If in doubt, contact us, providing sufficient information for us to decide.

Objectives

• Master's:
• Publications at important conferences or journals.
•  Honors degree.
• Upon graduation, entering a PhD program, with us or in leading American or European universities.

• PhD:
• Strong publication record in top journals.
•  Honors degree and other national and international awards.
• Upon graduation, obtaining the title of  National Researcher of Mexico or equivalent in your country.

Convinced. What's the next step?

Contact a professor who you prefer to have as advisor: Alexander Gelbukh, Grigori Sidorov, or Hiram Calvo (only one please). Please include:

• CV with your complete publication record (if any) and skills (if any), among other relevant data. Attaching the previous degree's certificate and scores would be useful.
• Motivation:
• Why do you want to work in the area of NLP? What do you know about it, or what your experience in related topics is?
• Why specifically do you want to study at CIC? What do you expect from it?
• What are your plans after you graduate? For example, if you apply for Master's, do you plan to continue to PhD?
• Look at our awards page; will your name shine on it upon finishing? How will you help us to further improve the percent of students getting honors and awards?
• Topic: do you have any specific idea for your thesis? If so, please give us some details. A separate document with a research proposal is a plus, especially for PhD.

If we confirm that we consider you a strong candidate, please follow the steps outlined in the document "How to apply" (currently we have it only for PhD; ask us for instructions for MSc). Please feel free to contact us if in doubt.