End your January on a high note! Join us at the Pioneer Centre for AI for two thought-provoking talks, insightful discussions about recent papers, and some friendly socializing to wrap it all up.

Talk 1: Large-Scale Network Embeddings: Leveraging Social Relationships to Predict Future Life Events by Christian Djurhuus

Talk 2: Measuring polarization by Mikko Kivelä

🕑: 31 Jan 2025, 14:00 - 15:00
📍: Seminar Room, Pioneer Centre for AI, Østre Voldgade 3, 1350 København K
🔗: https://www.aicentre.dk/events/last-fridays-talks-networks-graphs

Lecturer / Assistant Professor - Computational Social Science, School of Sociology (UCD)

We are seeking applications from individuals with expertise in one or more of the following areas: Computational Social Science, Social Networks, Social Simulation, Artificial Intelligence, or related areas. The successful applicant is expected to play a significant role in the BSc in Computational Social Science and MSc in Social Data Science programmes, and also contribute to other Sociology programmes.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/unijobs/listing/386526/lecturer-assistant-professor-computational-social-science-school-of-sociology/

Changes in social connection during COVID-19 social distancing: It’s not (household) size that matters, it’s who you’re with

The study highlights that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the size of a household or the number of people someone lived with was less important for maintaining a sense of social connection than the quality of those relationships. Specifically, living with a romantic partner was found to significantly help individuals feel connected and supported during social distancing measures, more so than living with other household members like roommates, pets, or even children.

The broader takeaway is that who you live with—and the emotional closeness and support you share with them—matters more for well-being than just having more people around. This finding suggests that public health policies should balance physical health measures (like social distancing) with strategies to support emotional and psychological needs, such as allowing safe ways for people to interact with close partners or loved ones.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0245009

#postdoc position at CEU in data science, network science or computational social science.

Deadline: Feb. 22.

https://careers.ceu.edu/job/Vienna-Postdoctoral-Researcher-%28fmd%29-1100/1144754655/

Computation through the lens of spin glasses

https://youtu.be/94XXGGNDeCc?si=jbXCuDjU31GNP5Ez

#PhD Position in mathematical modelling of infectious diseases and climate change

https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/311728

#PhD Fellowship call for candidates who have a data science idea they'd like to pursue in Denmark

https://ddsa.dk/phdfellowshipcall2025/

DDSA also has a call for #postdocs

https://ddsa.dk/postdocfellowshipcall2025/

#PhD student with a curious and interdisciplinary mindset to work on integrating multimodal data to better understand trajectories of mental and brain health disorders!

https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLO680/fully-funded-phd-scholarship-in-network-science

Fully funded 3.5 years #PhD position at NetSI London working on modeling and reconstructing higher-order systems.

https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLO866/phd-studentship-fully-funded-in-network-science-reconstruction-and-modeling-of-higher-order-interactions-in-complex-systems

#postdoc position "from all areas of research that advance the state of the art in data science and the health sciences, extending the reach of data-driven research into novel medical application domains"

https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/29529

NYUAD hiring open-rank Computational Social Science faculty position. Anyone still on the market and interested, please apply. We start reviewing applications next week.

Application: https://apply.interfolio.com/160603

#PhD Candidate in Complex Networks with Structural Inequalities at Leiden University,

https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/vacancies/2025/q1/15413-phd-candidate-in-complex-networks

#Postdoc Research Fellow Position in Digital Phenotyping / Smartphone Data Research

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

https://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/13728

How to choose a research question?

“Science is a network—to make discoveries, follow the links of that network!” Says Jari Saramäki in his new post.
https://jarisaramaki.fi/2025/01/29/how-to-choose-a-research-question/

“Identify impactful and highly cited papers and try to figure out why they are important. Then, use Google Scholar or some other tool to find out who cites them; just look at the abstracts of the citing papers to get the big picture and then dive into the details of those pieces of work that sound relevant to you. This is, in my view, a more useful way than trying to read all the literature in detail, in some random order.

Everyone knows about Einstein’s theory of relativity, but few are aware of all the earlier efforts that went into developing ways to synchronize clocks across countries and continents using electric cables. Yet Einstein was undoubtedly familiar with this!”

🎞 Bonus video: Jari on Crafting Questions & Linking Thoughts: https://youtu.be/HwdZS6Fy8X8

The Copenhagen ITU-wide #PhD Open Call 2025, deadline Feb 24th, is now open!

If you are interested in studying human behavior and understanding:
1) how climate change affects behaviors
2) how algorithmic systems shape human behaviors
3) understanding the limits of predictive systems

https://nerds.itu.dk/2025/01/31/phd-open-call-2025/

2025 International Conference on the
Science of Science and Innovation

June 16 - June 18, 2025 in Copenhagen, Denmark

The International Conference on the Science of Science and Innovation (ICSSI) is an interdisciplinary event that brings together experts from various fields to explore the dynamics of scientific research and innovation. The conference serves as a platform for both producers—scientists from academia and industry—and consumers, including policymakers, publishers, funders, and administrators, to engage in meaningful dialogue. Our first European installment of ICSSI will feature science and technology policy environments, opportunities, and challenges in Europe and around the world. This interaction aims to enhance the global relevance and impact of research in the science of science and innovation.

https://www.icssi.org/

AI and science’s happy ending
Petter Holme

Central to the essay are the limits human language puts on knowledge acquisition. For example, how we will never take the time to get away from the messiness of the vernacular language (see below) in favor of logical and systematic language that could support our collective intelligence project called science. However, ML/AI could do, in principle, but would also have to overcome several language barriers.

https://petterhol.me/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ai_science.pdf

Interested in using data on human behaviour to understand and predict epidemics? Come do a #PhD with us! Deadline 7 March
https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/fees-and-funding/funding-scholarships/research-degree-funding/phd-studentships-health-analytics-modelling