PhD student position in Machine Learning for Data from Political Science

This PhD position is affiliated with the project WASP-HS funded project "Bias and Methods of AI for studying Political Behviour". This is a joint cross-disciplinary project between political scientists at Karlstad University and computer scientists at Chalmers. At Chalmers, we are looking for a PhD student placed at the Computer Science and Engineering department to work on the AI and machine learning side of this cross-disciplinary project.

Information about WASP-HS
This PhD position is part of the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program on Humanities and Society (WASP-HS). WASP-HS aims to realize excellent research and develop competence on the consequences and challenges of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems for the individual person and society. This 10-year program is initiated and generously funded by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation (MMW) with 660 million SEK. In addition to this, the program receives support from collaborating industry and from participating universities.

WASP-HS includes an extensive national graduate school with up to 70 doctoral students, the creation of least ten new research groups across Sweden, support for twelve visiting professors to strengthen Swedish research and networking activities, and a number of research projects. For more information about the research and other activities conducted within WASP-HS, please visit http://wasp-hs.org/.

The WASP-HS graduate school provides foundations, perspectives, and state-of-the-art knowledge in the different disciplines taught by leading researchers in the field. Through an ambitious program with research visits, partner universities, and visiting lecturers, the graduate school actively supports forming a strong multi-disciplinary and international professional network between PhD students, researchers and practitioners in the field. It thus provides added value on top of the existing PhD programs at the partner universities, providing unique opportunities for students who are dedicated to achieving international research excellence with societal relevance.

Major responsibilities
We are looking for a PhD student with a background  and interest in AI, machine learning and/or computational linguistics with a strong interest in cross-disciplinary work and collaboration with researchers in the social sciences.

The main research question for this PhD student concerns investigating which machine learning methods are most suitable for different kinds of data and tasks commonly dealt with by political sciences, as well as highlighting potential sources of bias arising from using different models, and different sized datasets. Techniques for learning from textual data is likely the most relevant initially. The results should be presented in such a way as to provide novel methodological guidelines and pedagogical examples to political scientists considering using AI and machine learning in their research. The student is expected to collaborate with a PhD student in political science in Karlstad also affiliated with this project.

There will also be room for the PhD student to go into more depth into other topics related to the project, depending on personal interest. This could for example be techniques for bias detection and mitigation in machine learning, as well as techniques for explainable AI. WASP-HS also gives PhD students the opportunity to collaborate with members of other related projects.

Position summary
Full-time temporary employment. The position is limited to a maximum of five years.

Qualifications
You should have a MSc degree (corresponding to at least 240 higher education credits) in a relevant field. Relevant fields include e.g. computer science, AI, data science, computational linguistics or mathematical statistics.  Furthermore, you should have a strong interest in cross-disciplinary work and a willingness to learn more about the political sciences. We also welcome applicants who are about to graduate before summer 2020.

Chalmers continuously strives to be an attractive employer. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

Our offer to you
Chalmers offers a cultivating and inspiring working environment in the dynamic city of Gothenburg. 
Read more about working at Chalmers and our benefits for employees.

Read about the application procedure here

Application deadline: 15 March, 2020 or until a suitable candidate has been found. 

For questions, please contact:
Docent Moa Johansson
E-mail: moa.johansson@chalmers.se
Phone: +46 31 7721078

*** Chalmers declines to consider all offers of further announcement publishing or other types of support for the recruiting process in connection with this position. ***