Overview
Context And Mission
CONTEXT AND MISSION
The Computational Social Science and Humanities program envisions preparing the social sciences and humanities for the era of data, artificial intelligence (AI), and Exascale supercomputing. Our mission is to foster collaboration between social scientists and computer scientists, making high-performance computing (HPC) accessible to all researchers in the field. Through innovative approaches, we aim to apply social science and humanities research to contribute valuable insights for informed policy making. In our pursuit, we focus on a wide range of key societal research areas such as Equity and Welfare, Education, Social Services and Labor Market, Public Opinion and Political Communication in (Social) Media, Social-Ecology, Science and Technology Studies, Archived History, Archeology and Cultural Heritage. Employing a mixed of advanced AI / ML models, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Agent-Based Modeling (ABM), and Social Network Analysis (SNA), we use high-performance computational methods to a wide range of large datasets, such as official statistics, surveys, social media, web-tracking data, news, laws, bibliometric data, historical archives, current data archives, archaeology data, citizen volunteered data, and public administration and industry data.
We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher with strong methodological skills in quantitative methods and experience in large-scale data analysis to join the computational social science group. The candidate will be expected to play a pivotal role in advancing cutting edge research on social scientific phenomena such as opinion dynamics and polarization. The candidate will report directly to Max Pellert, PhD.
We lay special emphasis on increasing the number of women in our team. Given equal qualifications, preference will be given to female candidates.
Responsibilities
Conduct innovative research on phenomena like opinion dynamics and polarization using advanced computational methods (ML / AI, LLMs, SNA, ABM).
Assistance with tasks of data collection, cleaning, pre-processing and analysis.
Writing and submitting project proposals of high scientific quality to seek competitive financial support at the national and European level.
Collaboration with the rest of the research group and other members of the CSSH program.
Exchanges and creation of synergies with other social science as well as technical disciplines to advance research and knowledge transmission.
Qualifications
Education
PhD in computer science, cognitive science or quantitative social sciences
Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience
Experience in quantitative empirical analysis and computational methods (data mining, ML / AI, text analysis, network analysis, agent-based modeling).
Programming skills and ability to work with code in multiple languages R, Python), with different statistical software, packages and notebook environments
Experience in adhering to open science practices
Data visualization skills
Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience
Strong prior work in network science is considered a plus
Willingness to learn how to use cutting-edge language technologies in research
Previous experience with international collaboration and community building
Interest in disseminating results to the general public
Competences
A scientific mindset, the capacity of working independently, strong affinity for cooperative collaboration, project management skills
Analytical thinking and problem-solving abilities
A motivated thinker and quick learner
Excellent presentation and written skills in English
A team player and a kind colleague, especially to junior scholars
Conditions
The position will be located at BSC within the Directors Department
We offer a full-time contract a good working environment, a highly stimulating environment with state-of-the-art infrastructure, flexible working hours, extensive training plan, restaurant tickets, private health insurance, support to the relocation procedures
Duration : Open-ended contract due to technical and scientific activities linked to the project and budget duration
Holidays : 23 paid vacation days plus 24th and 31st of December per our collective agreement
Salary : we offer a competitive salary commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the candidate and according to the cost of living in Barcelona
Starting date : asap
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