PhD Position in Human-Centred AI in Education

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in educational technologies to support and enhance learning and teaching. Examples include adaptive learning trajectories, automating feedback, and detecting students with additional needs. Despite these promising evolutions, educational stakeholders’ interactions with these technologies are currently suboptimal due to a lack of transparency and control with regards to underlying AI models. To give insights into AI outcomes and model behaviour, many explainable AI techniques have been developed. These can be communicated in the form of visualisations, for example, in visual analytics dashboards. However, different contexts and target groups require different explanation methods and modalities. This motivates why human-centred approaches are necessary to make explanations effective. Similarly, there exist different AI control approaches where either people or the AI system takes the initiative or there is a mixed initiative. It is yet unclear which paradigms should be adopted when and for whom and how they can be operationalised in education.

In this PhD project, you will contribute to tackling the transparency and control challenges above. Specifically, you will co-design explanation and control interfaces with educational stakeholders in human-centred design processes and evaluate these interfaces in lab or real classroom settings using a broad range of measurements (e.g., model understanding, trust, learning, motivation, reliance). As this is an inherently multidisciplinary project, you will combine technical skills (e.g., data science, algorithm-centred explainable AI, training AI models), design skills (e.g., visualisation, front-end development), human-centred skills (e.g., conducting user studies, human-centred explainable AI), and education-specific skills (e.g., assessment design, applying educational frameworks).

Postdoc: Integrated Spatial Perspective on Climate-Robust Water Systems

In this postdoc position, you will be at the forefront of discussions with Dutch practitioners who are currently working on the transformation of the water system in the Netherlands. You will specifically contribute to integrating knowledge from different domains (the physical system and the governance system) in a holistic approach of developing visual storylines that contribute to collaborative learning of the stakeholders involved. The storylines can be seen as joint imaginaries resulting from stakeholder discussions, informed by the analysis of the physical- and governance systems. The central aim of this position is to investigate how to combine the knowledge of different disciplines in an integrated spatial perspective on climate-robust water systems, and to propose methodologies that support stakeholder engagement and policy interventions (e.g., maps, narratives, digital knowledge technologies, etc.). The main tasks include:

1. developing tailored storylines at different stages of the project;
2. developing roundtable protocols that support inconvenient dialogues among stakeholders;
3. articulating desired and possible future visions within the living labs; and
4. visualising WaterScape storylines (through e.g. digital/GIS-based planning support tools).

As part of the NWO-KIC WaterScape project you will work in a larger team with PhDs and researchers who are based at different universities within the Netherlands. You will also interact with stakeholders and our other partners who will use your results for their future policy making, with the goal to create a more climate-robust water system in the Netherlands.

Postdoctoral position in ERC research project

The Postdoctoral position is for an artistic researcher whose artistic practice focuses on non-representationalist, performative, and norm-challenging approaches to art and research. We are searching for an artistic researcher who focuses on nature-culture relations from an intersectional feminist perspective, whose approach is informed by posthumanist and agential realist approaches, and who aims to make critical, anti-imperialist, and decolonial socio-environmental interventions. Your artistic research will be a part of a research project RESPIRE: Planetary Breathing in Asphyxiating Times lead by Dr. Magdalena Górska, funded by the European Research Council. The position consists of 0,5 fte (50%) and lasts for 48 months.

The RESPIRE project focuses on how planet Earth breathes and suffocates at the current socio-political-environmental conjuncture. Breathing and suffocation are understood not as metaphors but as material processes of contemporary multispecies living and dying on this planet. RESPIRE explores their political dimensions by examining how power relations, climate change, and socio-environmental injustices are interconnected through the practice of planetary breathing. By addressing "planetary lungs" such as forests, oceans, and soil, RESPIRE investigates the crises of deforestation, oceanic dead zones, and peatland destruction as forms of multispecies breathing and suffocation. The multispecies approach mobilized in the project combines feminist posthumanist, decolonial, and abolitionist perspectives that enable to engage planetary breathing as a socio-environmental processes that are deeply embedded in geopolitical inequalities, colonial legacies and current (extractivist)colonialism, disparate impacts of climate change, and intersectional social inequalities that shape environmental and social in/justices.

The Postdoc position will entail both independent and collaborative work. Your independent work will take place within the framework of the RESPIRE project and you will receive support from the PI, Dr. Magdalena Górska. Your tasks will include:

1. Two artistic interventions (with documentation) - you will have freedom to craft your own artistic practice and artistic interventions according to your specific interests while your practices and interventions must address questions of planetary multispecies respiration and asphyxiation in relation to the fieldwork research site located in the Venetian lagoon in Italy, Bargerveen peatland reserve in the Netherlands, and Katrineholm forest in Sweden. These locations were selected for RESPIRE with specific criteria in mind: they are sites of specific breathing and suffocation (dead-zone, deforestation, peatland restoration – all with their not only environmental but also socio-political, local and geopolitical dimensions) and they are located in Western Europe. While it might be tempting to investigate planetary respiration by conducting research at sites across the globe, the project will be carried out in Europe to limit RESPIRE’s carbon footprint (as the project is located in Utrecht, the Netherlands). In the context of decolonial criticism of West-centrism of academia, Western Europe serves in the project as a case study for a planetary, yet site-specific, situated, non-universalist, analysis which works critically with Europe’s inner socio-environmental differentiations and global geopolitical positioning. As part of the project, the team members (you, PhD student, and Magdalena Górska) will develop respiratory socio-environmental approaches embedded in a critical attention to the local, national, and geopolitical dimensions of power relations at the research locations and work with decolonial and abolitionist criticism and interventions towards Europe itself. In examining situated planetary breathing, you will focus not only on human but also on more-than-human relations and multispecies assemblages that constitute planetary breathing. These are the frameworks in which you will work on your artistic interventions while you will have freedom to develop the project through your own unique perspective.
   Your first artistic intervention will be a part of the exhibition-conference that will take place in the project’s 3rd year. The second artistic intervention will be exhibited in an art space selected by you. The goal is for both artworks to circulate in artistic and academic contexts beyond the duration of RESPIRE.
2. You will write one article in the medium of your choice that focuses specifically on your artistic research.

You will be a part of the RESPIRE research team that consists of you, a PhD student, and Magdalena Górska. The teamwork will include yearly fieldwork visits (three months of fieldwork per year for four years), knowledge exchange visits, co-organizing exhibition-conference, co-editing creative book, co-organising a summer school.

While this position entails specific framing because it is a part of a larger project, its aim is to enable development of your own specific expertise and artistic research practice. You will have space to develop your own critical respiratory approach while you will also benefit from a team in which we will collectively engage with relevant knowledges, practices, and social and environmental problems.

Junior Onderzoeker Diversiteit & Inclusie

De leerstoelgroep Organisatiegedrag van hoogleraar Naomi Ellemers is op zoek naar een onderzoeksmedewerker om het onderzoeksteam van Jojanneke van der Toorn te versterken.

Je werkt samen met andere onderzoekers in ons team aan onderzoeks- en disseminatieprojecten over diversiteit en inclusie (D&I) in organisaties. In deze projecten brengen we onder andere in kaart in hoeverre het D&I-beleid van organisaties samenhangend is, systematisch ontwikkeld en geïmplementeerd wordt, en wetenschappelijk gefundeerd is.

Op basis hiervan adviseren we organisaties over hoe ze hun D&I-beleid verder kunnen optimaliseren en verspreiden we de opgedane kennis naar een breed publiek. Daartoe analyseren we unieke organisatiegegevens (onder andere verzameld via de Nederlandse InclusiviteitsMonitor), schrijven we onderzoeksrapporten en praktische handreikingen, en organiseren we bijeenkomsten voor mensen uit de wetenschap en de praktijk.

De functie betreft de volgende taken:

• rekruteren van, contact onderhouden met en administratie bijhouden van deelnemende publieke en private organisaties;
• ontwerpen, programmeren en uitzetten van vragenlijsten;
• datasets voorbereiden ten behoeve van wetenschappelijk onderzoek en analyseren en interpreteren van beleids- en medewerkersdata van organisaties;
• wetenschappelijke bevindingen vertalen naar concrete adviezen voor de organisatiepraktijk;
• Nederlandstalige onderzoeksrapporten en praktische handreikingen schrijven.

In deze functie bieden we je een kans om in een klein team van onderzoekers te werken met korte communicatielijnen en een collegiale werksfeer. Je komt terecht in een omgeving waarin je veel kunt leren over diversiteit en inclusiviteit op de werkvloer, zowel vanuit een wetenschappelijk als een praktisch perspectief. Dit is een unieke kans om een brug te slaan tussen de wetenschap en de praktijk.

PhD position in ERC research project RESPIRE

The PhD position is a part of a research project RESPIRE: Planetary Breathing in Asphyxiating Times lead by Dr. Magdalena Górska and funded by the European Research Council. Your position will be fully funded for the duration of full time PhD studies (1 FTE) over 48 months.

The RESPIRE project focuses on how planet Earth breathes and suffocates at the current socio-political-environmental conjuncture. Breathing and suffocation are understood not as metaphors but as material processes of contemporary multispecies living and dying on this planet. RESPIRE explores their political dimensions by examining how power relations, climate change, and socio-environmental injustices are interconnected through the practice of planetary breathing. By addressing "planetary lungs" such as forests, oceans, and soil, RESPIRE investigates the crises of deforestation, oceanic dead zones, and peatland destruction as forms of multispecies breathing and suffocation. The multispecies approach mobilized in the project combines feminist posthumanist, decolonial, and abolitionist perspectives that enable to engage planetary breathing as a socio-environmental processes that are deeply embedded in geopolitical inequalities, colonial legacies and current (extractivist)colonialism, disparate impacts of climate change, and intersectional social inequalities that shape environmental and social in/justices.

The PhD position will entail both independent and collaborative work. Your independent work will be guided by your two supervisors Dr. Magdalena Górska and Prof. dr. Kathrin Thiele who will accompany you in your research and writing process, offer advice, and provide feedback. Your tasks will include:

Dissertation - you will have freedom to craft your own PhD project according to your specific research interests while the project also must address questions of planetary multispecies respiration and asphyxiation in relation to the fieldwork research site located in the Venetian lagoon in Italy, Bargerveen peatland reserve in the Netherlands, and Katrineholm forest in Sweden. These locations were selected for RESPIRE with specific criteria in mind: they are sites of specific breathing and suffocation (dead-zone, deforestation, peatland restoration – all with their not only environmental but also socio-political, local and geopolitical dimensions) and they are located in Western Europe. While it might be tempting to investigate planetary respiration by conducting research at sites across the globe, the project will be carried out in Europe to limit RESPIRE’s carbon footprint (as the project is located in Utrecht, the Netherlands). In the context of decolonial criticism of West-centrism of academia Western Europe serves in the project as a case study for a planetary, yet site-specific, situated, non-universalist, analysis which works critically with Europe’s inner socio-environmental differentiations and global geopolitical positioning. As part of the project, the team members (you, a Postdoc, and Magdalena Górska) will develop a respiratory socio-environmental approaches embedded in a critical attention to the local, national, and geopolitical dimensions of power relations at the research locations and work with decolonial and abolitionist criticism and interventions towards Europe itself. In examining situated planetary breathing, you will focus not only on human but also on more-than-human relations and multispecies assemblages that constitute planetary breathing. These are the frameworks in which you will work on your PhD research while you will have a freedom to develop the project through your own unique perspective.

You will write two articles that focus specifically on your research.

You will be a part of the RESPIRE research team that consists of you, a Postdoc, and Magdalena Górska. The teamwork will include yearly fieldwork visits (three months of fieldwork per year during years 1-3 of your PhD), knowledge exchange visits, co-creating a lecture collection from the RESPIRATORIUM lecture series, co-organising a summer school, and participating in a PhD writing seminar.

While this position entails specific framing because it is a part of a larger project, it is crucial that you embrace your own specific expertise and research interests. You will develop your own critical respiratory perspective, thinking, and researching practice while you will also benefit from a team in which we will collectively engage with relevant knowledges and social and environmental problems.