Postdoctoral Positions | Center for Humans and Machines 1064 views

The Digital Mobilization theme, Center for Humans and Machines (Director: Prof. Dr. Iyad Rahwan) at Max Planck Institute for Human Development, is inviting applications for Postdoctoral Research Positions (E 13 TVöD; 39 hours/week).

About the position:

• With the explosion of Artificial Intelligence and its deployment in our digitally mediated social lives, there are open questions that “Digital Mobilization” project (Principal Investigator: Dr. Manuel Cebrian) seeks to shed light on as they are critical for the social cohesion and political progress of societies all over the world, ever more reliant on digital platforms for information spreading and political mobilization.
• Have AI-powered digital social networks improved or harmed our ability to mobilize others for a cause?
• Are digital social networks a force of mobilization and collaboration, or instead of de-mobilization and conflict?
• What current institutions, platforms, social structures are making the best use of Crowdsourcing and Collective Intelligence, and how can we learn from them so that society can race with the rapid progress of Artificial Intelligence?
• To study these questions the project uses tools from Network Science and Computational Social Science.
• Funding for the postdoctoral positions is available for two years, with possibility of extension for a third year.
• The postdoctoral researchers are expected to work on quantitative and technical aspects of the project, providing expertise in using current and novel approaches to network modeling, information theoretic measures, complex systems modeling, and statistical inference.
• Extensive experience in collection, filtering, and analysis of mass media as well as social media data is required.

Requirements:

• Applicants with a strong interest and established expertise in network science, computational social science, information theory, complex systems, evolutionary modeling, computer science and machine learning will be preferred.
• Applicant is expected to hold a doctoral degree in Computer Science, Physics, Applied Mathematics, Epidemiology, or a related quantitative field.
• Demonstrated prior work in large-scale observational studies of networks and social systems.
• Deep Knowledge in working with Social Media APIs as well as state-of-the-art data privacy and data anonymization techniques.
• Outstanding experience in data science, as demonstrated by a track record of publications in top scientific journals.
• Excellent programming skills in Python, as well as proficiency with libraries for data manipulation and analysis.
• High proficiency in English.

Application:

Apply by sending (as ONE FILE and via email to sekrahwan@mpib-berlin.mpg.de with the sentence “Postdoc application in Machine Culture” in the subject line) including:

• Statement of research interests
• CV
• Copy of relevant certificates
• (p)reprints of three publications lead by the applicant
• List of four references