[ecrea] Postdoctoral opportunity at Information School at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle

The Information School at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle 
seeks a historian or ethnographer of computing for a postdoctoral 
research scientist position, starting September 2017. The hired 
candidate will work with Assistant Professor Megan Finn at the 
Information School, University of Washington in collaboration with 
Associate Professor Katie Shilton at the College of Information Studies, 
University of Maryland, College Park. The postdoc is a full-time 
position available for at least one year, with the possibility of 
extension. Salary and benefits are competitive. We will review 
applicants starting April 1, 2017.
Requirements:

   *   PhD awarded by anticipated start date (September 2017) in fields 
such as information studies, communication, history, anthropology, STS, 
media studies, geography or related disciplines.
   *   Commitment to collaborating on research and publications.
   *   Excitement about working on a multidisciplinary team.
   *   Outstanding qualitative (e.g. ethnographic, interview, oral 
history, or archival) research skills.
   *   Strong publication record.
   *   Familiarity with the historical or cultural dimensions of 
computer security research.

Preferences:

   *   Experience conducting interviews or oral history a plus.
   *   Familiarity with sociotechnical theory and perspectives beneficial.

The postdoc will collaborate on an NSF-funded project examining the 
history and culture of computer security research ethics. Computer 
security researchers prevent, discover, and fix flaws in devices and 
cyberinfrastructures, impacting national security, business practices, 
information privacy, and personal safety. However, these researchers 
must navigate ethical dilemmas about how to use big data and shared 
networked resources to discover vulnerabilities; how to safely expose 
these problems; and how to best ensure that critical vulnerabilities are 
fixed. This project seeks to understand how the computer security 
community formed a culture of attention to ethics; how ethics 
expectations are communicated among researchers; what sociotechnical 
factors support and challenge sustaining ethical practices; and how 
effective ethical self-regulation has been within in computer security 
research. The project utilizes multiple methods, including citation 
analysis, content analysis, and interviews, to illuminate and evaluate 
the ethical culture of computer security research. The project team is a 
friendly multi-disciplinary collaboration with researchers whose come 
from information studies, science and technology studies, data science, 
and computer security.
About us:
The location of the postdoc position is in Seattle, but may be flexible. 
At the University of Washington, the postdoctoral would be part of the 
research community at the Information School which holds regular 
research seminars, and includes the Technology Policy Lab. They would 
also have opportunities to work with research team members who run the 
DataLab at the Information School, and the Department of Computer 
Science & Engineering at the University of Washington and the Security 
and Privacy Research Lab.

Resources at the University of Maryland, College Park include membership 
in the EViD Lab, which focuses on the intersection of ethics, policy, 
and technology design and use. PI Katie Shilton and four doctoral 
students investigate how factors such as values and norms, rules and 
practices, and material constraints interact to influence emerging 
technologies. The postdoc may also join the Center for the Advanced 
Study of Communities and Information (CASCI) at the UMD iSchool. The 
CASCI community includes an interdisciplinary set of 11 faculty members 
to provide mentoring opportunities. CASCI also offers a bimonthly theory 
reading group, speaker series, and lab and meeting space.The UMD iSchool 
is a growing community of engaged, interdisciplinary researchers. 
Faculty, staff, postdocs, and students work collaboratively on a range 
of information problems, using diverse methods and approaches. Further 
opportunities for collaboration include UMD's Information Policy and 
Access Center (IPAC), the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL), 
Computational Linguistics and Information Processing (CLIP), and the 
Digital Curation Innovation Center (DCIC).

To apply:
Interested applicants should send a single pdf document to Megan Finn 
<(megfinn /at/ uw.edu)> and Katie Shilton <(kshilton /at/ umd.edu)>. Applications 
should include a one-page letter of interest, CV, a writing sample, and 
the name and contact information of three references.


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