Postdoctoral position in Data Science with a focus on societal values

The Department of Information Technology holds a leading position in both research and education at all levels. We are currently Uppsala University's third largest department, have around 350 employees, including 120 teachers and 120 PhD students. Approximately 5,000 undergraduate students take one or more courses at the department each year. You can find more information about us on the Department of Information Technology website.

We seek a postdoctoral fellow interested in advancing interdisciplinary research at the intersection of computing education and social data science.

The Agile Education in a Changing Landscape project aims to contribute to a better understanding of how societal trends in digitalization and computing influence the values, norms, and expectations of incoming university students. By exploring students’ information habits - especially their exposure to social media - and analyzing how they shape their attitudes toward computing, the project supports the agile development of responsible, ethical, and inclusive computing education.

The project is led by an interdisciplinary group of researchers and teachers from both the Uppsala University Information Laboratory (InfoLab) and the Uppsala Computing Education Research Group (UpCERG). The InfoLab is a growing interdisciplinary research group doing basic and applied research on the extraction of knowledge from data at the intersection of data mining, social network analysis and computational social science. The UpCERG conducts research in learning and teaching that informs educational practice in Computing and Engineering Education Research.

The successful candidate will be hosted by the Vi3 Division at the Information Technology Department and will be working very closely with the local and international collaborators. 

Duties
We seek a postdoctoral fellow in data science, education, or related fields to lead the project’s core research efforts and contribute to groundbreaking work in a collaborative and interdisciplinary environment. The duties include research design, method development, data collection, and analysis. The project employs a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative methodologies from computing education research with quantitative techniques from data science, including natural language processing and statistical modeling.

This postdoctoral position is a 2-year career-development appointment focused on research and includes a limited amount of teaching (20%). The ideal starting date is 1 September 2025 or soon after.

Requirements
PhD degree in Computer Science, Data Science or Computing Educationor a foreign degree equivalent to a PhD degree in Computer Science, Data Science or Computing Education. The degree needs to be obtained by the time of the decision of employment. Those who have obtained a PhD degree three years prior to the application deadline are primarily considered for the employment. The starting point of the three-year frame period is the application deadline. Due to special circumstances, the degree may have been obtained earlier. The three-year period can be extended due to circumstances such as sick leave, parental leave, duties in labour unions, etc.

Consideration will also be given to good collaborative skills, drive and independence. As a person, a successful candidate is motivated, creative, responsible, and has a structured approach.

Additional qualifications
Meriting qualifications are:

• Documented experience in Discipline Based Education Research, in particular within computing or engineering education.
• Documented experience working in interdisciplinary settings.
• Experience with quantitative methods such as, but not limited to, statistics, text analysis and social network science.

The application must contain:

• A cover letter briefly describing your motivation for applying for this position and project, and indicating the earliest possible employment date (max 1 page).
• A curriculum vitae (CV).
• A copy of relevant diplomas and transcripts (translated into Swedish or English).
• A list of publications.
• Up to five selected publications in electronic format.
• A research statement describing how your past and current research experience can contribute to this project (max 2 pages).
• Contact information for two references (but no reference letter).

About the employment
The employment is a temporary position of 2 years according to central collective agreement. Full time position. Starting date 1 September or as agreed. Placement: Uppsala. 

For further information about the position, please contact: Aletta Nylén (aletta.nylen@it.uu.se), Davide Vega (davide.vega@it.uu.se).

Please submit your application by 4 august 2025, UFV-PA 2025/1986.

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