PhD Position in Understanding hate speech, echo chambers, polarization on online social media platforms

PhD Position in understanding social media using AI. Specifically, the research will be done on the topic of hate speech, echo chambers and polarization using AI, Natural Language Processing, and Social Network Analysis techniques.

We expect the candidate to know one or more aspects of the following techniques and programming languages (if not all):

(i) Preferred programming languages: Python or R.

(ii) Exploratory data analysis: feature extraction, visualization, etc.

(ii) Machine learning and deep learning with some hands-on experience.

(iv) Social media analysis: This includes collecting data from Twitter/Reddit and analyze it for more insight. An ideal candidate should be mindful of what's going on social media as well.

(v) Social network analysis and Natural Language Processing

Program Benefits

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PhD: The funding covers the student fees and a monthly stipend of 1200 for 4 years and Tuition fee is waived.

Health insurance is provided

Academic and industrial professional development including travel support.

Interaction with world-renowned external board members and speakers.

Travel grant for attending conferences and workshops.

Location of PhD study: Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu, Estonia.

Institute of Computer Science is located in the University of Tartu Delta Centre (https://delta.ut.ee/en/) and it is a unique multidisciplinary centre for digital technology, analytics and economic thought, bringing together more than 2500 students, university teachers, scientists and R&D staff from companies. In short you will get an opportunity to work in a diverse and collaborative colleagues. Delta Centre opened in January 2020 and is one of the most modern centers of digital technology, analytical and economic thought in the Nordic region.

University of Tartu is the leading higher education and research center in Estonia, with more than 16000 students and 1800 academic staff. It is also the highest ranked university in the Baltic States according to both the Times Higher Education and the QS World University rankings. University of Tartu's Institute of Computer Science, ranks 176-200 (according to Times Higher Education), and  hosts 750 Bachelors and Masters students and 60 doctoral students. The institute has a strong international orientation: over 40% of graduate students and a quarter of academic and research staff members are international. Graduate teaching in the institute is in English.

Estonia is famous for for its e-approach and home to many startups like Skype, TransferWise and Bolt to name a few. Tartu, university town, is the second largest city of Estonia and is relatively less expensive and is surrounded by nature within in the walkable distance from the city.

The successful candidate will work on an European research project within the "computational social science lab" (https://css.cs.ut.ee/) at the Institute of Computer Science. The group conducts leading-edge research in the fields of social media analytics and social network analysis.

The applicant should have:

- Should have a master's degree in computer science, IT, mathematics or other relevant discipline,

- Excellent programming skills.

- A good command of spoken and written English,

- Background in statistics/Data Mining/Machine Learning, social media analysis would be ideal. Knowledge of social network analysis would be an additional advantage.

All applications should include a CV (PDF format, at the most 2 pages), research statement of suitability (PDF format, at the most 2 pages), Transcripts (master and bachelor), master thesis (or paper writing experience evidence). Applications can be sent to [email protected] with subject "PhD application in online social media".

Kind Regards

Rajesh Sharma,

Associate Professor

Head, Computational Social Science Group

Erasmus coordinator, Institute of Computer Science

University of Tartu, Estonia.

https://css.cs.ut.ee/

Email: [email protected]