Working at MIT offers opportunities, an environment, a culture and benefits that just aren’t found together anywhere else. If you’re curious, motivated, want to be part of a unique community, and help shape the future then take a look at this opportunity.

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, Political Science, to join a computational social science research project--LobbyView--with Professor In Song Kim. Will work with Professor Kim on a number of research projects to examine special interest group politics in the U.S. using various computational methodologies such as network analysis, natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning algorithms. The research will utilize a complex set of interconnected databases providing a dynamic work environment for scholars interested in computational social science research. Responsibilities include collaborating with other developers on developing/applying novel machine learning and NLP methods for social science research, and developing/maintaining a large-scale money in politics PostgreSQL database and various back-end utilities for building the PostgreSQL database. The team is currently developing various computational methods for social science research such as community detection and graphical neural network methods to infer close political ties, NLP methods to investigate congressional bill writing and entity disambiguation, and statistical models to estimate various causal quantities of interest.  The position offers an opportunity to engage in research projects according to research interests/background. 

Job Requirements

REQUIRED:  Ph.D. in and research experience with computer science, statistics, quantitative social sciences, or related field; research interest in computational social science; ability to work independently with general supervision and as part of a team; experience working with remote servers (labcluster, AWS); good Python/Git development skills (required to mentor students); and familiarity with SQL (project data is stored in a database).

PREFERRED:  experience with social science research, causal inference, network analysis, or graph machine learning; solid knowledge of SQL and relational database modeling; knowledge of Postgres/NodeJS/GraphQL/React/D3; and familiarity with deployment/packaging.  Job #18927

This National Science Foundation- and Russell Sage Foundation-sponsored project has a targeted start date of October 2020 (with some flexibility).  It is a one-year term appointment with the possibility of renewal based on funding and performance. 

MIT is an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, ancestry, or national or ethnic origin.

MIT considers equivalent combinations of experience and education for certain jobs. All candidates who believe they possess equivalent experience and education are encouraged to apply.