Senior Research Fellow Natural Language Processing

Contract Type: Fixed Term contract up to 3 years

The Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Government (CAIG) at the University of Birmingham invites applications for a Research Fellow (Grade 8) or Senior Research Fellow (Grade 9) with a strong background in Computational Social Science or Social Data Science. This is a 3-year position.

This position is an excellent opportunity for a highly motivated and skilled researcher to play a pivotal role in the Centre's mission to expand the role of AI and data science in the social sciences. This mission is institutionally supported through the Data Science Initiative in the College of Social Sciences. The Centre is based within the Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (IIDSAI), which is a nexus for collaborative research and education at the University of Birmingham.

The Centre has three core active research areas:

1. AI for Democracy: the role of generative AI in the information environment for effective accountability and representation in democratic political systems.
2. AI for Health and Climate Change: methods to track public and government engagement with the health effects of climate change.
3. AI and knowledge representation: understanding and modelling causal relationships in natural language.

The Fellow is expected to contribute to one or more of the research areas of the Centre.

Key Responsibilities:

• Conduct innovative research in computational social science, contributing to the advancement of state-of-the-art methods and tools.
• Pursue personal research including developing research ideas and winning support, including financial support.
• Plan, publish and execute high quality research.
• Project manage research activities and supervise other research staff.
• Present findings in high quality publications and conference proceedings.
• Supervise and examine PhD students, both within and out with the University.
• Provide expert advice to colleagues and students within discipline.

Person Specification:

• PhD in political science, international relations, international development, public policy and management, or a related field.
• Extensive research experience and scholarship in quantitative research methods, including the application of machine learning, natural language processing, and data science to social science questions.
• Extensive programming experience in Python and/or R.
• Extensive experience in advanced statistical methods and data visualisation techniques.
• Extensive experience and demonstrated success in planning, undertaking and project managing research to deliver high quality results.
• Extensive experience and achievement in knowledge transfer, enterprise and similar activity.

Application Process:

To apply, please submit the following materials:

• Cover letter, detailing your research interests and motivation for applying.
• Curriculum vitae, including a list of publications.
• Two representative publications or preprints.
• Contact details for two academic referees.

We will start reviewing applications on 20 June and invite shortlisted candidates for an interview on a rolling basis. If all positions are filled prior to the final closing date (30 September), we may close the advert, so we encourage early applications.

Please direct any questions about the position to Professor Slava Jankin at v.jankin@bham.ac.uk.

To download the full job description and details of this position and submit an electronic application online please click on the Apply Online button below or visit our careers website; https://edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_6001/job/2097/?utm_medium=jobshare

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We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working

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