Job: Post-Doctoral Researcher/Senior Post-Doctoral Researcher - 2 positions (Ireland; Deadline: 20.01.2023)
Post-Doctoral Researcher/Senior Post-Doctoral Researcher - 2 positions
Cork - Ireland
24 months, fixed-term, whole-time posts
Deadline: 20th January 2023
Please note that these positions can be filled at Post-Doctoral or Senior Post-Doctoral level, depending on qualifications and experience of the successful candidate.
Position summary
Two Post-Doctoral or Senior Post-Doctoral Researcher posts in Digital Humanities and/or Computer Science are available at the Department of Music in the School of Film, Music, and Theatre at University College Cork. We are seeking to fill a post-doctoral position, making an appointment up to the level of Senior Post Doctoral Researcher depending on the career stage of the successful applicant. These positions are funded by the European Research Council and are associated with the research project CIPHER: Hip Hop Interpellation. This study of global hip hop knowledge flows will synergize ethnographic and digital humanities methods to examine how hip hop “unlocks the global through the local.” The researcher will work closely with the Principal Investigator, J. Griffith Rollefson, and a diverse, world-leading team of ethnographic researchers, with computational support from the Insight Centre for Data Analytics.
The successful candidates will work with a team of ethnographic researchers to develop a corpus of hip hop lyrics. They will develop thematic tags with the team to map the flows of interrelated hip hop archetypes or “gems of knowledge” that have emerged in different forms and in different languages around the world. With the support of UCC’s Insight Centre for Data Analytics, the candidates will build from this knowledge base an interactive public-facing searchable web application that maps these knowledge flows across time and space (with the potential of integrating and developing further computational methods—NLP, Machine Learning, Stylometry, etc.). This CIPHER Map will be a user-friendly interactive web-based world map complete with search functions, user submissions, and moderation. The successful candidates will show an ability to manage the data and visualization sides of the project.
In the Application Letter, candidates are expected to outline how their interests and skills align with the CIPHER project – namely, how they might attend to the particular challenges that websites like Genius.com, Shazam.com, WhoSampled.com, and others have approached in the last decade—and how they might further develop and extend those solutions.
The successful candidates are expected to live in Cork, Ireland and become part of the research environment/network of the university and contribute to its development. The digital humanist/computer scientist is expected to develop computational solutions and produce web-based outputs as well as potentially collaborating with the CIPHER team in published results and otherwise contributing to popular dissemination of the research results.
In the evaluation of the applications, emphasis will be placed on:
The applicant’s knowledge of digital humanities and computer science skills such as corpus development, data visualisation, and web application skills
The applicant’s estimated academic and personal ability to carry out the project within the allotted time frame and contribute to the research project CIPHER
Good co-operative skills, and the ability to successfully join in academic collaboration within and across disciplines
Applicant should consider the following to determine suitability to role:
What computational methods will you employ to develop and tag a corpus of hip hop lyrics. Further, what methods would you use to design and engineer a user-friendly interactive web-based world map complete with search functions, user submissions, and moderation? (2) How will you draw upon your own technical experience when working on the project and how will that background benefit the project? What will be the advantages of your methodological approach, and how will you deal with potential practical and ethical challenges? (3) Because of challenges and delays related to Covid-19 the CIPHER project has had to limit its focus as proposed in the original CIPHER proposal. If given additional time and supports (beyond two years), what further data analytics methods (Machine Learning, NLP, Semantic Tagging, Stylometry, Computational Sociolinguistics, etc) would you be interested in developing if you were to further develop and expand this project?
Supplementary Information on the CIPHER project and the post is available at the following URL: http://www.ucc.ie/cipher
Post Duration: 24 months
Salary: Post-Doctoral Researcher: €41,207- €47,477 p.a. (IUA PD1 Salary Scale), Senior Post-Doctoral Researcher: €48,813- €53,092 p.a. (IUA PD2 Salary Scale)
Project Title: CIPHER: Hip Hop Interpellation
For an information package including further details of the post see ore.ucc.ie. Job ID: 062873.
Informal enquiries can be made in confidence to Prof Professor J. Griffith Rollefson, Professor of Music, Email Address: cipher@ucc.ie, Telephone: +353 (0)21 490 4931
Applications must be submitted online via the University College Cork vacancy portal (ore.ucc.ie). Queries relating to the online application process should be referred to recruitment@ucc.ie, quoting the job-title and project name.
Candidates should apply, in confidence, before 12 noon (Irish Local Time) on Friday, 20th January 2023.
No late applications will be accepted.
Please note that an appointment to posts advertised will be dependent on University approval, together with the terms of the employment control framework for the higher education sector.
UCC is committed to creating and fully embracing an inclusive environment where diversity is celebrated. As a University we strive to create a workplace that reflects the diversity of our student population where people from a wide variety of backgrounds learn from one another, share ideas, and work collaboratively. UCC is committed to being an employer that recognises the value of diversity amongst its staff. We encourage applicants to consult our policies at www.ucc.ie/en/edi/policies and initiatives at www.ucc.ie/en/edi/implementation and we welcome applications from everyone, including those who are underrepresented in the protected characteristics set out in our Equal Opportunities & Diversity Policy.
University College Cork is an equal opprtunities employer