Dirk Helbing’s Professorship of Computational Social Science at ETH Zurich hosts a team bringing together physicists, mathematicians, as well as social, complexity and computer scientists, to work on fundamental scientific questions regarding socially interactive systems using quantitative approaches. In particular, the team uses a combination of formal modeling, simulation, data mining, and behavioral experiments to understand the way our society works. Prof. Helbing has initiated the FuturICT initiative (www.futurict.eu). Interest in the goals of this initiative is a plus (seehttp://link.springer.com/article/10.1140%2Fepjst%2Fe2012-01687-x#page-1 and the related social media channels).
PhD Position: Simulating the Emergence of Social Intelligence and Culture in Early Societies
We are looking for a PhD Student preferably with a background in computer science or physics or computational anthropology for the ambitious ERC Advanced Investigator Grant “Momentum – Modeling the Emergence of Social Complexity and Order: How Individual and Societal Complexity Co-Evolve”. The Momentum project is about creating emergent social intelligence based on computational evolution and learning. It aims to model and simulate social interactions between sophisticated agents with cognitive capabilities and the resulting complex social dynamics on the macro-level, including phenomena such as self-organization, emergence of cooperation, social norms, and culture. The successful applicant will focus on the more technical, computation-related aspects, but will actively interact with the other team members and should also acquire a high-level understanding of the topic.
The candidate should possess excellent programming skills; experience with computational social science, agent-based computer simulations, and/or distributed high-performance computing is a plus. In addition, the applicant should be interested and ideally already have experience in Artificial Intelligence, collective intelligence, Big Data analytics, cognitive modeling, complex systems, genetic algorithms, evolutionary game theory, computational anthropology, or similar fields. Excellent English language skills, social skills, team spirit, and international experience are needed, and the candidate should appreciate to work in a highly interdisciplinary and multicultural team.
Candidates should send their application materials in one single pdf file (<5 MB), including a short motivational letter, their CV and exam documents (A-levels, bachelor, master or diploma, and PhD). Review of applications will begin on 15 February 2015, and will continue until the position is filled. The successful candidate is expected to start working in Zurich around spring 2015. Applicants are requested to submit their materials as quickly as possible online.