Postdoctoral fellowship in Text Mining, Modeling, and Prototyping

Description

Seeking a post-doctoral fellow in Text Mining, Modeling, and Prototyping, with expertise in Data Modeling and Digital Humanities. This position is based in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, in partnership with the Orlando Project and the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory (CWRC).

The position is funded by the Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE) project and the Text Mining and Visualization project, funded by a Major Collaborative Research Initiative grant and a Standard Research Grant, respectively, from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), The successful candidate is anticipated to work closely with team members at U Alberta, U Toronto, Acadia U, U Saskatchewan, U Western Ontario, U Guelph, U Victoria, and beyond.

The postdoctoral fellow will work with conceptual data models and new forms of knowledge expression currently developed or under development by INKE and CWRC, collaborating with INKE's Modelling and Prototyping team and others, consulting with project stakeholders and potential stakeholders, and liaising with other INKE researchers located in North America and the UK.

The successful candidate will have skills and aptitudes in humanities-oriented research and data modelling, including training or demonstrated experience working with the Resource Description Framework and/or other conceptual modelling approaches. Organizational skills are essential. Interest and aptitude in research planning and management would be an asset, as would knowledge of data visualization tools (e.g., VTK, D3, or Gephi). The ability to work in concert with our existing team is a critical requirement.

Experience with leveraging semantic markup for text mining, visualization, and interoperability would be an asset. Examples of technologies employed in the partner projects include: XML, XSL, XSLT, XHTML, and TEIP5 encoding; XQuery; eXist XML databases; JavaScript; and Ruby on Rails. Experience in some or all of these technologies would be an asset, but is not a requirement. Hands-on aptitude with--as distinct from merely interest in--digital tools is required.

Our current team members pride themselves on a passionate interest in both the humanities and their computational engagement. Our ideal candidate is someone with similar passions who can introduce the team to new ideas and provide new perspectives on existing digital humanities issues. The salary for this position is competitive in the Canadian context, and is governed in part by SSHRC practices.

Applications comprising a brief cover letter, CV, and the names and contact information for three referees may be sent electronically to Susan Brown at susan/dot/brown/at/ualberta/dot/ca. The contract can begin as early as 1 September 2012; it is for a one-year term, with the possibility of renewal.

Interviews may be conducted via Skype or in person,  in Edmonton, or other venues as feasible. Applications will be reviewed until the position is filled.

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