Population Data BC is seeking a Postdoctoral Fellow or Research Associate for a two-year term, with possibility for extension, to take significant leadership in a timely applied research project that will engage with the public to reform governance of access to research resources. Developments in data, technology, researcher desires, and public expectations have outpaced the outdated data access arrangements currently in use, and this program of research aims to address this issue while enhancing the legitimacy of policies for accessing new and complex linked data through consultation with a deliberatively engaged public. Objectives of this project include understanding how a deliberatively engaged public assesses and advises regarding criteria for the use of data and biospecimens, and the design and proposal of a model of sustained public involvement in data access governance in collaboration with data stewards.

Operating primarily within the School of Population and Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, Population Data BC is a multi-university, data and education resource facilitating secure research access to individual-level, de-identified longitudinal data on British Columbia's 4.6 million residents, linking data across various sectors such as health, education, early childhood development, workplace and the environment

Key objectives of Population Data BC are to:

1. Make more data sets available for research
2. Facilitate cross-linkages among the data sets in a privacy sensitive manner
3. Provide strategic leadership to ensure streamlined researcher access to these data
4. Provide educational and other opportunities to ensure full and best use of those data

The primary activities of the Postdoctoral Fellow or Research Associate include:

• Provide overall project leadership for a public engagement research project as outlined in a funded CIHR grant
• Work with the investigative team and project stakeholders on framing questions and other planning aspects of public engagement
• Lead event planning and production of materials for public engagement
• Analyse transcripts and other information gathered during the public engagement event
• Prepare academic material and knowledge translation material based on these analyses
• Assess ability of PopData to embed public engagement in its ongoing work

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The Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington (UW) Seattle seeks an ethnographer of data science for a 36 month (2.5yrs) postdoctoral research scientist position, starting January 2017. The hired candidate will work with Prof. David Ribes in Seattle, and in collaboration with Geoffrey C. Bowker (and an additional postdoc) at the UC Irvine School of Informatics.

The postdoc will collaborate in the investigation of the Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs and Spokes program (BDHubs), an NSF funded "umbrella organization" for US Big Data and data science. This project will investigate the ongoing activities at the BDHubs and its partner institutions, their emerging plans for the future, and will tie these to the history of research infrastructures. The goal is to understand the rise and institutionalization of 'the data sciences,' including organizational, methodological, epistemological and infrastructural transformations at the nexus of science, industry and state.

The ideal candidate will be trained in the social and/or information sciences and have a grasp of the field of Science & Technology Studies (STS); have good communication skills; have a strong background in qualitative methods; and be able to navigate a highly interdisciplinary field of investigation. Additional methodological skillsets welcome!

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The Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) of the Faculty of Humanities is looking for a PhD candidate to join the ERC-funded project 'Data Activism: The Politics of Big Data According to Civil Society'(DATACTIVE), with Dr. Stefania Milan as Principal Investigator. DATACTIVE investigates citizens' engagement with massive data collection, seeking to understand how activism evolves in the time of datafication.

As datafication progressively invades all spheres of contemporary society, citizens grow increasingly aware of the critical role of information as the new fabric of social life. This awareness gives rise to new sociotechnical practices taking a critical approach to 'big data' and massive data collection, which fall under the rubric of 'data activism'. Data activism takes at least two forms: re-activedata activism, whereby people increasingly resist the threats to civil rights that derive from corporate privacy intrusion and government surveillance (e.g., by means of technical fixes such as encryption); and pro-active data activism, whereby citizens take advantage of the possibilities for campaigning and social change that data availability provides (e.g., data-based advocacy). The DATACTIVE project explores how activism broadly defined evolves in the age of big data. We take a critical look at, among others, citizen empowerment through data; civil society's privacy practices; surveillance and internet activism; governance of data flows and internet infrastructure; open data and civic tech networks.

You will join an interdisciplinary team working under the leadership of Dr. Stefania Milan (the Principal Investigator) and collaboratively examining the emerging dynamics of data activism at the intersection of its social and technological dimensions. We offer a multidisciplinary, interactive and international research environment in a leading department (Communication and Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam currently ranks number 8 in the QS World Rankings).

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