COSMOS - Extra Help Assistant III

University of Arkansas • Little Rock, AR

3d • $24 • Onsite

About The Position

The Extra Help Assistant will help develop socio-computational models to advance our understanding of cyber campaigns run on social media grounded in the dynamics of various social and communication processes such as group formation, activation, decentralized decision making, and collective action. The Extra Help Assistant will aid cyber forensics and deep web search-based methodologies, to assist with extracting relevant open-source information in a guided snowball data collection manner. The Extra Help Assistant will work with the research team to support development of predictive models of deviant socio-technical behaviors on various social media platforms (particularly, video-based platforms) to identify key actors and key groups responsible for coordinating cyber campaigns and disseminating propaganda. This is an on-campus position. This position is governed by state and federal laws, and agency/institution policy. The position reports to Prof. Nitin Agarwal ([email protected]), Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair & Donaghey Distinguished Professor, and Director, COSMOS Research Center at UA-Little Rock.

Requirements

• Must have a PhD degree from an accredited institution of higher learning; or
• Must have a Master's degree from an accredited institution of higher learning and currently enrolled in a PhD program at UALR.
• Extensive knowledge of computational social science and social network analysis
• Extensive knowledge of intensive group analysis on social network
• Extensive knowledge of operational research
• Extensive knowledge of systems thinking analysis
• Extensive knowledge of computational complex network analysis
• Extensive knowledge of online/offline environment analysis
• Extensive knowledge and expertise with social media mining and cyber forensics
• Research experience in Game Theory and decision making
• Research experience with decomposition optimization analysis
• Research experience with agent-based modeling
• Research experience with multiplex network analysis
• Research experience with information theory
• Research experience with control theory and feedback analysis in social media
• Research experience with dynamic network analysis
• Research experience with examining cyber campaigns run on social media
• Research experience with examining contexts on social media
• Experience with transitioning research into usable tools
• Computer programming skills and data management skills
• Ability to interact with people of diverse ethnic backgrounds
• Communication skills, writing skills, and public speaking
• Effective organizational skills

Nice To Haves

• The candidate should have extensive research experience in social media mining, computational modeling of social science theories, working with social network analysis tools, and examining cyber campaigns conducted on social media
• A candidate with experience in operational research, optimization tools, information theory, multiplex networks analysis, computer programming, and data management will be given preference.

Responsibilities

• Assist with social media analysis for the research projects, such as hypothesis generation and evaluation for understanding cyber behaviors, data collection, cleaning, preprocessing, analyzing findings from the data, for preparation with drafting research findings for conferences and scientific venues
• Write software modules transitioning research to tool
• Assist with online information environment analysis
• Provide inputs for conduction of training for stakeholders on research and tools
• Mentor/monitor graduate/undergraduate students working on the project – an experience that will aid in student development to prepare/continue a successful academic career afterward
• Assist in preparing reports and publications
• Perform other duties and provide additional support as assigned

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Entry Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree