Background:
The Jubiläumsfonds der Stadt Wien has approved funding of the project “Combining Traditional and Emerging Big Data Sources to Model Population Movement Patterns”. The project aims to 1) provide insights into the difference between traditional data and big data on movement patterns and 2) combine available data to provide synthetic estimates of true migration flows patterns with uncertainty.
Job description:
The research assistant will perform advanced statistical modelling of migration data from various sources (census, surveys, mobile phone call records, social media activities) to further the understanding of movement patterns within selected countries. He/she will work in close collaboration with a consortium of leading statistical demographers (Vienna Institute of Demography, University of Manchester and University of Washington) and geographers (University of Southampton). Further, the research assistant will contribute to the preparation of publications for peer-reviewed journals, present results at conferences and help organise meetings with the collaborators. He/she is expected to work towards his/her dissertation which will focus on applied statistical methods in demography. Funds are available to cover international research stays with project collaborators and present work at international conferences.
Requirements:
The successful candidate will have a Master (or similar qualification) in statistics or a related field such as demography or geography with a significant quantitative component. Expert knowledge of statistical methods and their application to demographic data is essential, preferably with experience in Bayesian methods and/or modelling migration patterns. The applicant should have excellent analytical and computer skills with experience in statistical software (R) and ideally some knowledge of Bayesian packages such as BUGS, JAGS or stan and/or GIS. A high level of English (speaking and writing) is necessary.
Conditions of employment:
The project is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). The remuneration follows the FWF scheme, amounting to a gross salary of €2.024,90 per month for a part time position (30 h/week). The position will be located in Vienna and open for a period of two years. In case of an outstanding candidate who has completed a Ph.D., the position may be offered as a Post-doc position of shorter duration (14 months, 40 hrs/week) with a gross salary of € 3.546,00 per month.
Start of contract:
January 2016 or earlier.