Postdoctoral Research Associate in Complex Systems Modelling, Quantitative Modelling of Legal Complexity and Infonomics

Job id: 079685. Salary: £47,178 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance.

Posted: 22 November 2023. Closing date: 10 January 2024.

Business unit: Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sci. Department: Mathematics.

Contact details:Dr Pierpaolo Vivo. [email protected]

Location: Strand Campus. Category: Research.

Job description

The Department of Mathematics at King’s College London invites applications for 1 postdoctoral research associate position for a duration of 27 months starting in October 2024. The successful candidate will be affiliated with the Quantitative and Digital Law Lab [https://quantlaw.co.uk ] to do theoretical and data-driven research in collaboration with Dr Pierpaolo Vivo and Dr Alessia Annibale on several projects at the interface between complexity science, statistical physics and network theory to address legal, political and socio-economic issues.

The ideal candidate will hold a PhD in applied mathematics, physics, computer science, computational social studies or related areas, substantial programming and data-analysis skills, a keen interest and technical skills in mathematical modelling of socio-economic systems, as well as a desirable previous 2-year postdoctoral experience. In recent years, the Lab has created a prototype of a navigable visualisation interface for UK Acts of Parliaments [https://graphie.quantlaw.co.uk/ ], which would need to be maintained and scaled up.

The QuantLaw team has lately tackled the problem of optimal size of parliaments in democratic countries, retrieval of information and structural complexity of legal texts, as well as models for the pricing of information in games of chance.

The successful candidate will conduct high-visibility research and publish in high profile outlets, as well as contribute to the Departmental and Faculty activities. The post is offered at a competitive salary (grade 6 spine 34 of KCL salary scale) and includes generous provisions for travel money, computing equipment, and academic and leadership training.

This post will be offered on an fixed-term contract for 27 months

This is a full-time post – 100% full time equivalent

Key responsibilities

• Conduct international-level research in the field of complexity science applied to socio-economic, political and legal issues, and publish regularly in high-profile outlets.
• Contribute to the ongoing Graphie project, by maintaining the visualization platform online and devising ways to scale up the project to different legal texts and including improved functionalities.
• Participate actively in the Departmental and Faculty life and be available and proactive in offering help on student supervision.
• Meet regularly with the other team members, submit internal reports, participate in outreach and dissemination activities.
• Present the team’s work in national and international conferences and gatherings.
• Establish and widen their network of international collaborators.

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

Skills, knowledge, and experience

Essential criteria

1.       PhD in applied mathematics, physics, computer science, computational social studies, disordered systems or related areas

2.       Substantial programming, data scraping and data analysis skills, especially aimed at financial and socio-economic applications

3.       Robust technical and analytical skills in mathematical modelling and analysis of complex systems

4.       Robust presentation skills

5.       Solid track record of publications and programming portfolios, with emphasis on applications and use cases in the field of socio-physics and computational social science

6.       High research productivity and reasonably fast pace of project completion

7.       Competence in spoken and written English

8.       Ability to work in a team

Desirable criteria

1.    2 years of previous postdoctoral experience in related fields

2.    Familiarity and previous experience with XML format and Python programming language, working knowledge of JSON and d3.js framework, web standards HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.

3.    Previous interests and experience in Network Theory, Complexity Science and applications to real-world and societal issues

* Please note that this is a PhD level role but candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs will be considered. In these circumstances the appointment will be made at Grade 5, spine point 30 with the title of Research Assistant. Upon confirmation of the award of the PhD, the job title will become Research Associate and the salary will increase to Grade 6.

Interviews will be held in January 2024.