{"id":1017381,"date":"2024-04-03T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T14:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-job-opportunity&#038;p=1017381"},"modified":"2024-04-02T14:36:56","modified_gmt":"2024-04-02T21:36:56","slug":"predoctoral-research-assistant-contract-computational-social-science","status":"publish","type":"msr-job-opportunity","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/opportunity\/predoctoral-research-assistant-contract-computational-social-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Predoctoral Research Assistant (Contract) \u2013 Computational Social Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Are you a recent college graduate wishing to gain research experience prior to pursuing a Ph.D. in fields related to computational social science (CSS)? Do you have a deep love of \u201cplaying with data\u201d\u2014cleaning it, understanding it, combining it, reshaping it, and visualizing in enlightening ways? If so, you might be who we are looking for to fill our contingent virtual lab predoc in the Microsoft Research NYC lab!<\/p>\n<h2>About Us<\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/theme\/computational-social-science\/\">MSR NYC Computational Social Science group<\/a> is widely recognized as a leading center of CSS research. Our approach is motivated by tackling two longstanding difficulties for traditional social science: first, that simply gathering observational data on human activity (e.g., who says what to whom, with what effect) is extremely difficult at scale and over time; and second, that running experiments to manipulate the conditions under which these measurements are made (e.g., randomly assigning large sets of interacting people to treatment and control groups) is even more challenging and often impossible.<\/p>\n<h2>About You<\/h2>\n<p>This role will entail working on one or more research projects with job responsibilities including running online virtual lab experiments, conducting surveys using third-party providers, obtaining, cleaning, and manipulating datasets from the web or other sources, performing statistical analyses, designing\/maintaining websites, helping to coordinate the projects, and writing research deliverables.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TIME PERIOD:<\/strong> Start by June 17, 2024 and end date in July or August 2025<\/p>\n<p><strong>The successful candidate will have the following required skills:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bachelor\u2019s degree completed by Summer 2024 (we do not require a specific undergraduate major, though applicants majoring in quantitative fields such as mathematics, statistics, psychology, economics, or computer science have been the most competitive in the past)<\/li>\n<li>Demonstrated programming skills (both front- and back-end web programming including JavaScript, HTML, or related frameworks, experience with general purpose languages like Java, C#, C++, or Python, as well as substantial experience programming statistical analyses and visualizations in R)<\/li>\n<li>Demonstrated experience doing empirical research<\/li>\n<li>Strong quantitative skills (which can be evidenced by coursework in statistics)<\/li>\n<li>Demonstrated ability to work independently and to translate high-level objectives into specific programming tasks using a variety of resources (web research, manuals, sample programs, asking colleagues).<\/li>\n<li>Please make GitHub page available and\/or provide code samples from project<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Additional preferred (but not required) skills include:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>2+ years\u2019 experience doing empirical research at a consulting firm or government organization.<\/li>\n<li>Experience with a database language like SQL<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The successful candidate will work with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/people\/dgg\/\">Dan Goldstein<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/people\/jmh\/\">Jake Hofman<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/people\/davidmr\/\">David Rothschild<\/a>, and possibly other researchers in the Lab. They will hold a time-limited contingent staff position at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/lab\/microsoft-research-new-york\/\">Microsoft Research \u2013 NYC<\/a>, located at 300 Lafyette St. in New York, NY. MSR NYC focuses on academic research designed for publication in peer-reviewed journals and includes 25 PhD researchers in the broad area of data science, as well as a number of interns, post-doctoral fellows, and visiting professors from top U.S. universities. The lab also hosts occasional academic seminars open to the broader New York data science community.<\/p>\n\n\t<a\n\t\thref=\"https:\/\/webportalapp.com\/sp\/2024_msr_predoc_computational_social_science\"\n\t\tclass=\"button cta-link\"\n\t\tdata-bi-type=\"button\"\n\t\tdata-bi-cN=\"Apply now\"\n\t\tdata-bi-tN=\"shortcodes\/msr-button\"\n\t\ttarget=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\n\t\tApply now\t<\/a>\n\n\t\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"research-area":[13556,13548,13559],"msr-region":[197900],"msr-job-opportunity-type":[235157],"msr-city":[267993],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-program-audience":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"class_list":["post-1017381","msr-job-opportunity","type-msr-job-opportunity","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-research-area-economics","msr-research-area-social-sciences","msr-region-north-america","msr-job-opportunity-type-vendor","msr-city-united-states","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_opportunity_cta":"https:\/\/webportalapp.com\/sp\/2024_msr_predoc_computational_social_science","msr_opportunity_subdate":"2024-04-30","msr_opportunity_subdate_type":"deadline","msr_opportunity_pubdate":"March 21 2024","msr_opportunity_legal_copy":"","msr_opportunity_poc":{"name":"","email":"msrpredoc@microsoft.com","phone":""},"msr_opportunity_type":["Vendor"],"msr_research_lab":[199571],"related-researchers":[],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-groups":[144903],"related-projects":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-job-opportunity\/1017381"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-job-opportunity"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-job-opportunity"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-job-opportunity\/1017381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1017393,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-job-opportunity\/1017381\/revisions\/1017393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=1017381"},{"taxonomy":"msr-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-region?post=1017381"},{"taxonomy":"msr-job-opportunity-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-job-opportunity-type?post=1017381"},{"taxonomy":"msr-city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-city?post=1017381"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=1017381"},{"taxonomy":"msr-program-audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-program-audience?post=1017381"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=1017381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}