UCD Post-doctoral Research Fellow Level 1 # 014013

This postdoc position has resulted from a collaboration between UCD, TUD and the Immigrant Council of Ireland. The collaboration is supported by the IRC COALESCE (Collaborative Alliances for Societal Challenges) and seeks to understand the socio-technical challenges and implications of (anti) immigrant sentiment in Ireland.

Immigration is a complex phenomenon with broad socioeconomic implications. There are many potential complex social conundrums associated to immigration and the perception of immigrants. This can result anti- immigrant sentiment expressed over online fora and within an increasingly digital political landscape. To date, there has been no comprehensive analysis of the factors behind malcontent and negative sentiment as expressed in online fora – mostly due to a lack of data. This project aims to assemble a meaningful dataset of anonymized online discourse to enable comprehensive data analysis and insights into anti-immigrant sentiment in Ireland.

The successful candidate will have the following main duties:

1- NLP and Machine Learning Models for the identification of anti-immigrant social media content including the sourcing / selection of appropriate data
2- An online demonstration toolkit for real-time processing and reporting of social media content
3- Engage with stakeholders and use the technical developments of the project to help inform policy makers

This specific role focuses on the machine learning and NLP aspects of the project and the postdoc fellow will work together with the team at TUD, the Immigrant Council of Ireland and the UCD PI team to deliver the project outputs.

This is a research focused role, where you will conduct a specified programme of research supported by research training and development under the supervision and direction of a Principal Investigator.

The primary purpose of the role is to further develop your research skills and competences, including the processes of publication in peer-reviewed academic publications, the development of funding proposals, the mentorship of graduate students along with the opportunity to develop your skills in research led teaching.

In addition to the Principal Duties and Responsibilities listed below, the successful candidate will also carry out the following duties specific to this project:

1. Proactively contribute to the technical development of the project, identify areas for innovation within the project and develop practical solutions for their implementation.

2. Interact with project stakeholders (internal and external) and be comfortable presenting to increase the awareness of the project.

3. Contribute and in some instances, take the lead on the preparation of scientific publications arising out of the project.

4. Develop data analysis pipelines and methodologies, as well as machine learning approaches according to the project needs.