GESIS – Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences is an internationally active research institute, funded by federal and state governments and member of the Leibniz Association.
For the next possible date our Department Knowledge Technologies for the Social Sciences, Big Data Analytics located in Cologne, is looking for a
Senior Researcher (PostDoc)
Computational Social Science
(Salary group 13 TV-L, working time 100 %, limited to 4 years, with a potentially permanent future position)
The department Knowledge Technologies for Social Sciences (KTS) conducts research at the intersection of information retrieval, natural language processing (NLP), human information interaction and machine learning as foundation for innovative web portals and platforms for the search and use of research data and methods.
GESIS is currently conducting a major effort to explore digital behavioral data in combination with artificial intelligence-based methods to generate new insights and create infrastructures for the social sciences. Examples include techniques for opinion mining, hate speech and stance detection, or classification of online behavior and interactions as observed in social platforms and other data-intensive tasks.
Transparency, fairness and reproducibility of used computational methods (e.g. large language models) are crucial challenges for the social sciences. In this context, we offer an exciting opportunity to conduct and lead excellent research on and with innovative methods for answering social science questions through mining and understanding of behavioural data using techniques from NLP and Large Language Models (LLMs).
Your tasks will be:
- Research into computational methods for the social sciences, e.g. in natural language processing (NLP) or information extraction (IE) to extract meaningful insights from unstructured data such as social media posts
- Working and collaborating with an interdisciplinary team of computer scientists and social science researchers
- Developing and evaluating efficient and transparent methods for analyzing, accessing and processing digital behavioral data
- Communicating and publishing your research within and outside of GESIS and at top-tier (social Science) research venues
- Managing projects and project team members; supervision of PhD students
Your profile:
- Scientific university degree (diploma/master) and Doctoral/Ph.D. degree in computer science, computational social science or related fields and (internationally) visible publications in one or more of the following areas: computational social science, information extraction, NLP, machine learning, information retrieval, web mining
- Ability to communicate fluently in English, German language skills are desired
- Experience in software development for NLP, ML, and data analytics (e.g. R, Python)
- Desirable: experience in coordinating scientific projects and research teams
Our Benefits:
- A fast-growing, international, and interdisciplinary research environment with strong ties to regional and international labs and experts in related fields
- Access to unique corpora of Web-mined data, user interaction logs, and computational infrastructure for collecting and processing behavioral data
- Flexible working hours and the possibility of up to 60% mobile working within Germany
- Very good conditions for reconciling work and family life, e.g. subsidies for childcare for children who have not yet attained the age of compulsory schooling
- Holistic company health management and discounted participation in the university's sports programme
- Generous support for your pension provision as a direct insurance policy
- Promotion of your skills through further training measures
For further information concerning the tasks please contact Stefan Dietze via phone +49 (0)221-47694-421 or via email. If you have questions about the application process, please contact Franca Tosetti via email.
Interested?
Please apply via our Online-application portal until 15.01.2025.
Our reference number is: KTS-67
GESIS offers an exciting work environment for interdisciplinary research at the interface between social sciences and computer sciences. As an infrastructure institution, we serve the promotion of the social science research, and we are in close cooperation with well-known international research institutes.
GESIS supports your career developments. We offer a wide range of career possibilities within an attractive working atmosphere with a high level of self-responsibility and scope for action. You work in an international environment in the heart of Cologne and you benefit from our flexible working area.
GESIS guarantees the attention of the disability regulations and advances the professional gender equality. The position can also be filled on a part-time basis.
As a family-friendly employer, we are certified by the audit Work&Family since 2010.
Here you will find further information.
