[Air-L] Ad Astra PhD Scholarship in the School of Information and Communications Studies, University College Dublin

[Fabio Giglietto]

Dear AoIRers,
I thought hat you or someone you know may be interested in this 4-year
fully-funded PhD position in the School of Information and Communication
studies at University College Dublin. Tuition fees are waived by the school
and there’s a research budget along with the scholarship.

Please share it with your contacts, mailing lists, and potential
candidates. The post is open to candidates of all backgrounds and
nationalities. Starting date is September or as soon as academic activities
resume post-COVID-19.

See below for more info.

https://www.ucd.ie/ics/study/phdresearchprogrammes/
(Click on Ad Astra PhD Scholarship)

For questions related to this post please contact Marco Bastos at
marco.bastos at ucd.ie
----
Ad Astra PhD Scholarship in the School of Information and Communications
Studies, University College Dublin

School: Information and Communications Studies
Supervisor: Marco Bastos marco.bastos at ucd.ie
Starting date: 1st Sept 2020 (likely later, when academic activities resume
post-COVID-19)
Position: 100%, full-time position, tuition fees waived by the School
Remuneration: PhD studentship renewable for up to four years and consisting
of:
 - PhD student stipend of €18k per annum (tax free)
 - €4k per annum towards research costs of the PhD student.
Eligibility: EU and non-EU students are equally eligible for studentships
under this award
Requirement: Students accepted under this scheme must meet the university
entry standards.

Description of the post:
The School of Information and Communications Studies at University College
Dublin is offering one fully funded PhD scholarship under the supervision
of Dr Marco Bastos.
The PhD student will work on quantifying offline phenomena through online
data and/or new theories, methods, and objectives to the study of
problematic content and misinformation online.
We also welcome candidates interested in the social implications of
technology, including the dynamics of social influence and contagion,
computational communication science, ethics of computational research on
human behaviour, and the forecasting of social phenomena with digital trace
data.
The candidate will explore computational models of social phenomena,
including behaviour modelling, social network analysis and modelling,
mining of large-scale social data, algorithms and protocols driving
information diffusion on social platforms, and data mining of social media
platforms.
The candidate will be provided a desk in the School’s dedicated PhD office
and a dedicated budget for research expenses is included with the
Scholarship. The School of Information and Communications Studies has a
healthy cohort of 10+ PhD students.

Substantive research area:
The post holder will be supervised by Dr Bastos, whose research addresses
the cross-effects between online and offline social networks, including the
association between geography and network formation, the direction of
homophily, and the elapsed effects of online activity on physical groups.
The substantive research question explored by the candidate may draw from
communication and information studies, sociology, political communication,
geographic information systems, and social network analysis or related
areas.

Responsibilities:
The post holder will be expected to write and successfully defend a PhD
thesis focused on the areas listed in the description of the post and meet
the degree requirements set by UCD to advance through the PhD programme.
The candidate is also expected to produce research outputs in relation to
their doctoral research and attend conferences to disseminate the research
findings.
Conferences of interest to the post holder include the Association of
Internet Researchers, the International Conference on Social Media &
Society, the International Communication Association, the International
Conference on Social Informatics, and the International Conference on Web
and Social Media.
The candidate is expected to assist in the organisation of project
meetings, workshops, and activities within the scope of this research area.
The candidate should take part in seminars, workshops, and events organised
within the School and across University College Dublin that are relevant to
the project.
Finally, the development of teaching skills and teaching activities will be
considered at a later stage of the PhD in discussion with the candidate and
the supervisors.

Role profile:
Candidates are expected to be familiar with or interested in developing
skills in computational methods. Familiarity with leveraging digital media
to the study of social phenomena is highly desirable. Other key skills
include familiarity with data mining, text-as-data, network analysis,
spatial statistics, machine-learning, and natural language processing.

Requirements:
Strong command of English is required. English proficiency at the C2 or C1
level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is
advised. UCD Graduate Studies TOEFL and IELTS score requirements can be
viewed here.

Candidates are expected to hold a Master’s Degree in Media and
Communication, Information Sciences, Geography, Political Science,
Sociology, Digital Methods or comparable Master’s Degree in the Social
Sciences, preferably a research master/Mlitt.
Organisational experience and skills.
Preference will be given to candidates who can demonstrate experience and
expertise in quantitative methods, including network analysis and
modelling, spatial statistics, automated text analysis, and
machine-learning in application material. Affinity for data-driven
research, preferably as evidenced by your Master’s dissertation,
publications, and research project.
Proven experience with R, Python, MATLAB, Julia, Ruby, JavaScript,
TypeScript or equivalent object-oriented programming language is highly
desirable.
Experience with the analysis of social media data is desirable.
Applications are open to students of all nationalities and backgrounds.

Apply:
Applications need to be submitted via UCD’s application portal. The
candidate should apply to Programme Code W139 using the UCD Admissions
online application portal (a €50 application fee applies).
The School of Information and Communication Studies requires PhD applicants
to submit their curriculum vitae, an applicant statement, and a personal
statement. Candidates are advised to describe their research interests,
explain why they believe this position fits their profile, and include a
brief description of the topic they would like to explore in their PhD
project. In addition to that, applicants should submit a writing sample,
preferably a piece that has been published, as additional information.

Applications will be reviewed through our system of open, transparent, and
merit-based recruitment of researchers.

For questions related to this post please contact Marco Bastos at
marco.bastos at ucd.ie