Postdoc position in Scaling Up Qualitative Interviews with Large Language Models at IT University of Copenhagen

The IT University of Copenhagen invites highly motivated candidates to apply for a postdoc position. The earliest possible starting date is 1 May 2025.

The IT University’s vision is to create and share knowledge that is profound and leads to groundbreaking information technology and services for the benefit of humanity. The Computer Science Department seeks to conduct research and education that are both foundational and have an impact on industry and society.

Job description
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used in social sciences to classify content or as synthetic 'respondents', but their greatest potential may lie in eliciting new information from people. This project will develop a novel framework for collecting large-scale interview data, based on the application of cutting-edge LLM techniques in the social science domain.

A priority for the development is to rely on open-source language models, to increase both regulatory compliance and understanding of the benefits and weaknesses of the model. The project will focus on English and Danish. It will be tested in a case study of Danish citizens' opinions towards the green transition to produce large-scale, in-depth data to inform better data-driven policies.

The ideal candidate will have a solid background in Computational Linguistics/Natural Language Processing, as well as core skills in programming in Python and machine learning. Having prior knowledge in an area relevant to the project is valuable (e.g. social sciences, psychology, qualitative methods). On the NLP side, relevant prior experience could include domain-specific chatbot development, adaptation to low-resource languages, training data development.

The position is funded for 2 years. The postdoc will receive mentorship and support in clarifying their career goals and strengthening their profile in the relevant areas. Besides adding to their portfolio of top-tier publications, the postdoc will build up their international network and collaborative skills and increase their visibility through e.g. organization of an international workshop and/or conference tutorial. For those interested in pursuing an academic career, the following is also possible (but entirely optional):

• gain experience in applying for external funding, with professional support of ITU funding unit
• supervise Master students solo, and/or assist in supervising a PhD student
• undertake a formal teacher training program, including teaching guest lectures in the relevant data science courses at the ITU computer science department

The research environment
The project is interdisciplinary and cross-institutional: it is led by Associate Professor Hjalmar Bang Carlsen (University of Copenhagen), an expert in mixed methods in the social sciences, and Associate Professor Anna Rogers (IT University of Copenhagen), an expert in Transformer-based language models. Accordingly, the candidate will be part of two research groups (in NLP and Social Data Science).

The main place of employment will be NLPnorth research group, which is currently the largest in Denmark, with 5 faculty working on various aspects of NLP and 4 PhD students and postdocs (3 more incoming). The main collaboration is with the Center for Social Data Science at the University of Copenhagen. Besides, the candidate will also be a member of the national Pioneer Centre for Artificial Intelligence, a 5-university Danish research endeavor. NLPNorth and both research centers are highly international and well-funded, working on a broad range of research topics and providing a vibrant intellectual environment for all research tastes. Here you can find some reflections by foreign PhD students in the NLPNorth research group.

General information
The IT University of Copenhagen (ITU) is a teaching and research-based tertiary institution concerned with information technology (IT) and the opportunities it offers. The IT University has more than 160 full-time Faculty members. Research and teaching in information technology span all academic activities which involve computers including computer science, information and media sciences, humanities and social sciences, business impact and the commercialization of IT.

About the Data Science Section
The Data Science Section at the IT University of Copenhagen conducts research in various aspects of data science, including computational social science, discrete optimization, information retrieval, machine learning, natural language processing, network science and more, as well as a range of applications. Its faculty is responsible for many courses in the ITU programs for Bachelor/Master in Data Science. The section currently has 16 permanent faculty and 35 PhDs and postdocs.

Working at the IT University
Located in modern architecture, a 6-minute metro ride from the center of Copenhagen, the IT University offers an informal working environment, a varied everyday life, and a highly motivated, ambitious, competent, and diverse international faculty, with PhD degrees from 17 different countries. The IT University is an equal opportunity employer and prides itself in actively and successfully pursuing an improved gender balance among students and among faculty.

Working in Copenhagen
Copenhagen has a solid educational system, a rich cultural life, universal healthcare, good childcare, and well-functioning infrastructure. Copenhagen is among the world’s most livable cities according to the Economist Global Liveability Index. Living and working in Copenhagen will be a good experience for you and your family.

Salary and terms of employment
Appointment and salary will be in accordance with the Ministry of Taxation’s agreement with the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (AC) and job structure for academic staff at Universities.

Qualification Requirements
The applicant must hold or be close to completion of, a PhD-degree with research experience in Natural Language Processing with a substantial publication record, for example, publications in top conferences such as *ACL, EMNLP, ICLR, or similar, or in journals of a comparable quality.

Application
The application and all other documents ought to be in English and must include:

• [Required] A full CV including name, phone number, e-mail, previous and present employment and academic background, a complete list of publications, information for professional references (names, position, relation to the candidate, contact information)

• [Required] A cover letter discussing the match between this position and your qualifications, your research and career agenda, the direction you would like to take in this project, and your preferred starting date.

• [Required] Documentation of academic degrees (copy of degree certificates etc.)

• [Optional] A brief statement listing up to 3 publications or projects, your contributions to them, and the relevance of the corresponding skills or expertise to this project (up to 1 page).

• [Optional] Reference letters

Applications without the above-mentioned required documents will not be assessed.

The applicant will be accessed according to the Appointment Order from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of 13 March 2012.

The IT University may use shortlisting in connection to the recruitment process. In case of shortlisting, the Chair of the hiring committee selects applicants for assessment in consultation with the hiring committee after the application deadline. All applicants are notified whether their application has been passed for assessment. The shortlisting of candidates for assessment is based on the criteria in the job posting.

Further information
Questions about the position can be directed to Associate Professor, Anna Rogers, IT University of Copenhagen, [email protected]. Early contact with the PI is encouraged.

Questions related to the application procedure may be directed to HR, [email protected].

Application procedure
You can only apply for this position through our e-recruitment system. Apply by pressing the button "Apply for position" in the job announcement on our website.

Please note that all application material will be destroyed after the assessment.

The IT University might upon request in the interview process contact 1-2 references.

Application deadline: 17 March 2025, at 23:59 CET.

Applications/enclosures received at ITU after the application deadline will not be taken into consideration. If you submit an application, it is your responsibility to ensure that it arrives before the deadline so please allow sufficient time for upload of publications and other documents.

At The IT University of Copenhagen we have an international environment and view diversity as a valuable resource. We are committed to ensuring an inclusive working environment for all our employees and encourage all qualified applicants, regardless of age, gender, religious affiliation, or ethnic background to apply for the position.

Department: Rued Langgaards Vej 7 2300 København S

Location: Rued Langgaards Vej 7