Dear all,

The Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, Germany, Institute for Urban Futures is seeking a predoctoral researcher in a two-year project in the field of „computational social psychology“, starting in October 2015. The Institute for Urban Futures is a recently founded interdisciplinary research institute studying strategies of sustainable urban transformations by combining research approaches from social and computational sciences, urban planning, and information visualization. The project “Modeling attitude dynamics in complex social systems” is directed by Professor Dr. Tobias Schröder, a social and cognitive scientist with a research focus on dynamics of social interaction and emotional experiences and is conducted in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Gerhard de Haan, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

The research project will investigate attitudinal and emotional dynamics in the context of sustainable transport innovations. It involves the collection and analysis of sentiment data from social media as well as the development of a computer-based interactive decision support tool for practitioners. Specific design and further details will be developed in consultation with the project partners from the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany and the successful candidate.

Successful candidates will have a bachelor or master degree in computer science, mathematics, physics (or a related field) and have strong programming experience and skills (e.g. familiarity with Java, Python, R or equivalent). Experience in the following fields will be a plus:

• Data collection and analysis of social media data (e.g. twitter)
• Advanced understanding of lexicon-based and/or learning-based methods of sentiment analysis
• Statistical methods for social network analysis
• Data visualization, interface design and/or software development
• Computational Social Science and Data Science
• Interest in writing a doctoral thesis

We offer a challenging position in an inspiring research environment at a young, innovative university and close collaboration in a dynamic interdisciplinary research team. The gross monthly salary is based on the TV-L 12/13 pay scale of the State of Brandenburg for a part-time position (50% FTE), corresponding to a salary range of 19000-25000 Euros annually depending on personal circumstances. In addition, employees in the public service in Germany enjoy generous health, pension, and unemployment benefits. For further information please contact Ingo Wolf by E-mail (wolf@fh-potsdam.de). Please do not send applications to this address.

To apply for this position, please send your informative application with a letter of motivation, a CV and a list of publications (if applicable) until the August 14th, 2015 to Fachhochschule Potsdam, Personalabteilung, Kiepenheuerallee 5, 14469 Potsdam or via E-Mail to carolin.schmidt@fh-potsdsam.de. For both options please identify your application with the reference code 26 / 2015.

Best regards,
Ingo Wolf