The candidate will be working at LISIS: a newly established, Paris-based interdisciplinary lab combining research approaches from the computational, social science, and data visualization domains. More precisely, the post-doc will contribute to the CorText team which mission is to develop innovative methods for textual corpora and complexe networks analysis. The post-doc will contribute to a recently funded international project based in Canada, and will design innovative solution for modeling the dynamics of “thought collectives” within the international oncology research community.
Project
The project “Oncology's metaknowledge networks” is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and involves three partners: the department of Social Studies of Medicine at McGill University (Alberto Cambrosio - project leader), the Knowledge Lab which is part of the University of Chicago’s Computation Institute (James Evans), and LISIS in Paris (Jean-Philippe Cointet).
In the last four decades, oncology has shifted from a small, marginal domain within biomedicine to one of the largest, most central, and successful biomedical domains. Oncology has pioneered the most innovative approaches to translational research and genomics. In spite of the field’s staggering expansion, a relatively small number of oncologists—the oncology “core set”—appear to define the international research and treatment agenda, with unknown consequences for medicine and human health. Our project seeks to achieve a deep understanding of how the organization and institutions of oncology research shape how oncology “thinks”. To gain such an understanding, the project draws on various digital archives and innovative computational tools to trace research teams and collaboration networks, investigative and clinical technologies, the myriad recombinant elements under investigation—tissues, cells, genes, proteins, biomarkers—and the changing landscape of institutions that host them
Qualifications required
The ideal candidate should have a PhD in Computer Science, Physics, and Mathematics (or a related field) with a strong programming experience. A background in Network Analysis will be very much appreciated. While not mandatory, knowledge of machine learning methods and experience in data visualization would also be highly valued. Given the inter-disciplinary dimension of the project, a substantive and methodological interest in the social sciences would be a plus.
Practical details
-The position will start as soon as possible for a one-year duration. The contract is renewable as theproject will last 4 years.
-The candidate will be employed by INRA.
-The post-doc will work under the supervision Jean-Philippe Cointet (LISIS INRA). The candidate will be directly involved in the CorText team (composed of physicists, sociologists, computer linguists, engineers, etc.), whose mission is to design innovative data science strategy for the social sciences.
-Salary will be commensurate with experience (from 42 k€ to 50k€)
-Please send your application including a short letter of motivation, curriculum vitae, and possibly short statements of research to jean-philippe.cointet [at] polytechnique.org