Data Science Postdoctoral Fellowships

Announcing the 2015 Moore/Sloan Data Science and WRF Innovation in Data Science Postdoctoral Fellowships

The University of Washington eScience Institute announces a competition for the 2015 Joint Moore/Sloan Data Science and Washington Research Foundation Innovation in Data Science Postdoctoral Fellowships. We seek outstanding interdisciplinary researchers with expertise in the methods of data science and in a physical, life, or social science.

The fellowships are part of a multi-year partnership between the University of Washington, University of California at Berkeley, and New York University and are funded jointly by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation with additional support from the Washington Research Foundation. The program recognizes that rapid advances in our ability to acquire and generate data are transforming all fields of discovery from “data-poor” to “data-rich” and a significant bottleneck to discovery is our ability to perform inference over heterogeneous, noisy, and often massive datasets.

Up to 4 Fellowships will be awarded in 2015. Fellows are provided with full annual salary support of $65,000 for two years and a research stipend of $25,000 over the total period of the appointment that can be used for travel, equipment, software, undergraduate research assistants, or other research costs.

To apply, each candidate should identify two mentors from the list of eScience Affiliate Faculty for dual mentorship — one in a methodology area (computer science, statistics, applied math, information sciences, or human centered design and engineering), and the other in a domain science (life, physical, or social). The candidate will submit a single application package jointly with these two faculty mentors. A candidate may also contact a faculty member not currently listed as an affiliate.

Application Details. To apply, submit the following materials to manager@escience.washington.edu no later than January 5, 2015.

A one-page statement of research accomplishments.

A two-page statement of goals for proposed research activities. The statement should include discussion of how the candidate’s proposed research will contribute to the goal of enhancing linkages between a domain science and data science.

A curriculum vitae.

Three letters of reference submitted directly by the recommenders to manager@escience.washington.edu.

The applicants must also compile and submit as part of the above application the following:

A one-page document from the applicant indicating the rationale for the choice of mentors, the expected benefits of working with the mentors, and the relationship of the activity to the applicant’s career goals.

Two one-page documents, one from each of the proposed mentors, indicating a commitment to work with the prospective Fellow, describing a mentoring plan, and summarizing each researcher’s prior record of mentoring.

Evaluation of Proposals. Proposals will be evaluated by the steering committee of the University of Washington eScience Institute. Applications will be evaluated based on:

The Fellow’s record of research and other accomplishments as they relate specifically to advancing data-driven discovery;

The quality and suitability of the mentoring plan for the Fellow’s future work;

The contribution of the Fellow’s proposed research to advancing the techniques and technologies of data science and the domain that depends on them;

The Fellow’s commitment to reproducibility and open science as demonstrated by the public release of data and/or software.

Notification will occur by February 1, 2015.

The University of Washington (UW) is proud to be one of the nation’s premier educational and research institutions. Our people are the most important asset in our pursuit of achieving excellence in education, research, and community service. Our employees not only enjoy outstanding benefits and professional growth opportunities, but also an environment noted for diversity, community involvement, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits, and natural beauty.

Micaela S. Parker, Ph.D. | Program Manager Computer Science and Engineering | eScience Institute University of Washington | Campus Box 352350 Seattle, WA 98195