Postdoctoral Scholar | Studying Rapid Response Misinformation Mitigation Efforts
The University of Washington Center for an Informed Public (CIP) invites applications for a Postdoctoral Scholar to work on a recent National Science Foundation funded project titled “Building Rapid-Response Frameworks to Support Multi-Stakeholder Collaborations for Mitigating Online Disinformation.” The postdoctoral scholar will be appointed in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering, College of Engineering at the University of Washington.
In collaboration with project PIs Drs. Kate Starbird, Emma Spiro, and Jevin West, the postdoctoral scholar will lead an ethnographic study of a multi-stakeholder, data science collaboration working to mitigate online mis- and disinformation. The work will include participant observation in collaborative data analysis as well as interviews with diverse stakeholders.
One goal of the broader project is to develop frameworks for building and deploying multi-stakeholder collaborations for “rapid response” to disinformation. This specific study (that the postdoctoral scholar will lead) aims to better understand some of the complexity of doing this kind of data science — i.e. the rapid analysis of “big” social data — in a highly collaborative and high-stakes environment. We are seeking someone with a strong qualitative/ethnographic background as well as some familiarity with analyzing social media data and with the context of online mis- and disinformation.
The Postdoctoral Scholar will also have the opportunity to engage with researchers at the Center for an Informed Public (CIP). The CIP is a multidisciplinary institute with a core mission aiming to resist strategic misinformation, promote an informed society, and strengthen democratic discourse. The CIP offers an exceptional opportunity to work closely with the Center’s faculty, including sociologists, information scientists, computer scientists, and policy experts. Located in Seattle, the position also offers opportunities for engagement with scholars and industry leaders in the area.
The position will begin as early as January 2022 and offer an initial two-year term with the possibility for a third-year renewal.
Postdoctoral Scholar | Computational Social Science
The University of Washington Information School (UW iSchool) invites applications for a Postdoctoral Scholar to work with Dr. Tanu Mitra on an Office of Naval Research Young Investigators Program (ONR-YIP) funded project titled “Influencing Communities and Narratives: New Techniques for Understanding Adversarial Influence Online.”
In collaboration with Dr. Mitra and her students, the postdoctoral scholar will contribute primarily to the above project, along with any other projects they may be interested in exploring on the topic of adversarial online influence and misinformation.
The Postdoctoral Scholar will also have the opportunity to engage with researchers at the Center for an Informed Public (CIP). The CIP is a multidisciplinary institute with a core mission aiming to resist strategic misinformation, promote an informed society, and strengthen democratic discourse. The CIP offers an exceptional opportunity to work closely with the Center’s faculty, including sociologists, information scientists, computer scientists, and policy experts. Located in Seattle, the position also offers opportunities for engagement with scholars and industry leaders in the area.
The project aims to study how adversarial online influence looks like in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), particularly, in the Indian subcontinent through a series of large-scale quantitative analysis and experiments conducted on social media. Specific questions that the project will answer include:
- 1. What are the key vectors of adversarial influence operations in the IOR? How do mainstream media interact with new media (social media) and how do adversaries utilize this landscape to launch influence operations online in the IOR?
- 2. How do we characterize community-based and narrative-based influence in the region?
- 3. How can we interrogate and audit algorithms for adversarial influence in the IOR? This work will involve collecting and analyzing data from multiple social media platforms, constructing machine learning models, complementing quantitative analysis work with deep qualitative analysis, and developing and conducting audit experiments to measure influence in real-time online.
Applicants with expertise in quantitative (e.g., machine learning, natural language processing), qualitative (e.g., discourse analysis), computational social science, social computing, and HCI/CSCW are strongly encouraged to apply. The position can also provide an opportunity to learn new methodologies and approaches. We encourage applicants from backgrounds traditionally marginalized/underrepresented in the field to apply.
This is a two year position. The initial appointment is for a minimum of one year, with a strong possibility of reappointment in the second year. This position will begin as early as January 1, 2022.
