PhD student position in Natural Language Processing

The position is dedicated to the design, validation and application of AI methods in the social sciences, with an emphasis on natural language processing (NLP) and causal inference methods. It is funded by the research project ‘Countering bias in AI Methods in the Social Sciences’, which is a collaboration between the Division of Data Science and AI at Chalmers and the Institute for Analytical Sociology at Linköping University.

Project description
Methods developed in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are increasingly being applied as a research tool in the humanities and social sciences. In contrast to statistical approaches traditionally applied in these fields, AI/ML methods allow researchers to work with more complex models and to integrate unstructured types of data (e.g. text, images, signals) more seamlessly. However, while these new approaches open up new research avenues, it is critical to understand their applicability and limitations.

The topic of the PhD project will be in the design, validation, and application of AI methods for problems in the social sciences. The main emphasis will be on methods in natural language processing (NLP) to compute representations of text, but other modalities including vision will potentially be considered as well. Specifically, the research in the project will be based on recent advances in causal inference methods that can utilize high-dimensional representations computed by AI methods. In the project, the PhD student will develop methods to integrate such representations, investigate theoretically and empirically how the representations affect the quality of estimates, and explore the opportunities and limitations of these methods. In collaboration with researchers in the project, the new methods will be applied in order to investigate research questions in social and political science.

The project is funded by WASP-HS (The Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program – Humanities and Society), via the programme NetX: Networking Excellence Projects in the Humanities and Social Sciences for the Study of Consequences and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems.

Information about the division and the department
The PhD student will join the Data Science and AI division at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Chalmers and will be integrated in the NLP research group in this division. There will also be a close collaboration with the Institute for Analytical Sociology at Linköping University. The project that funds the position is led by a cross-disciplinary team of researchers in AI, NLP and sociology.

Major responsibilities
Your main responsibility as a PhD student is to pursue your doctoral studies within the scope of the research project. This includes the development of new methods and publishing your results at scientific conferences and journals.

You will be enrolled in a graduate program in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. You will be part of the WASP-HS Graduate School too and will be able to take the courses and participate in other scientific activities provided by WASP-HS. In addition, the position includes 20% departmental work, mostly as a teaching assistant in Chalmers' undergraduate and masters-level courses or performing other departmental tasks. 

Qualifications
To qualify as a PhD student, you must have a master's-level degree corresponding to at least 240 higher education credits in a relevant field at the time of start. The position requires sound verbal and written communication skills in English. If Swedish is not your native language, Chalmers offers Swedish courses.

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

We offer
Chalmers offers a cultivating and inspiring working environment in the coastal city of Gothenburg. 
Read more about working at Chalmers and our benefits for employees.

Chalmers aims to actively improve our gender balance. We work broadly with equality projects, for example the GENIE Initiative on gender equality for excellence. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

Application procedure
The application should be marked with Ref 20220663 and written in English. The application should be sent electronically and be attached as PDF-files, as below. Maximum size for each file is 40 MB. Please note that the system does not support Zip files.

CV: (Please name the document: CV, Family name, Ref. number)
• CV
• Other, for example previous employments or leadership qualifications and positions of trust.
• Two references that we can contact.

Personal letter: (Please name the document as: Personal letter, Family name, Ref. number)
1-3 pages where you:
• Introduce yourself
• Describe your previous experience of relevance for the position (e.g. education, thesis work and, if applicable, any other research activities)
• Describe your future goals and future research focus

Other documents:
• Copies of bachelor and/or master’s thesis.
• Attested copies and transcripts of completed education, grades and other certificates, e.g. TOEFL test results.

Please use the button at the foot of the page to reach the application form. 

Application deadline: 28-02-2023

For questions, please contact:
Senior Lecturer Richard Johansson, DSAI
E-mail: richajo@chalmers.se

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