[Commlist] Ad Astra PhD Scholarship in the School of Information and Communications Studies, University College Dublin

Ad Astra PhD Scholarship in the School of Information and Communications 
Studies, University College Dublin

https://www.ucd.ie/ics/study/phdresearchprogrammes/

(Click on Ad Astra PhD Scholarship)

School: Information and Communications Studies

Supervisor: Marco Bastos (marco.bastos /at/ ucd.ie)

Starting date: 1st Sept 2020 (likely later, when academic activities 
resume post-COVID-19)

Position: 100%, full-time position, tuition fees waived by the School

Remuneration: PhD studentship renewable for up to four years and 
consisting of:

  - PhD student stipend of €18k per annum (tax free)

  - €4k per annum towards research costs of the PhD student.

Eligibility: EU and non-EU students are equally eligible for 
studentships under this award

Requirement: Students accepted under this scheme must meet the 
university entry standards.

Description of the post:

The School of Information and Communications Studies at University 
College Dublin is offering one fully funded PhD scholarship under the 
supervision of Dr Marco Bastos.

The PhD student will work on quantifying offline phenomena through 
online data and/or new theories, methods, and objectives to the study of 
problematic content and misinformation online.

We also welcome candidates interested in the social implications of 
technology, including the dynamics of social influence and contagion, 
computational communication science, ethics of computational research on 
human behaviour, and the forecasting of social phenomena with digital 
trace data.

The candidate will explore computational models of social phenomena, 
including behaviour modelling, social network analysis and modelling, 
mining of large-scale social data,

algorithms and protocols driving information diffusion on social 
platforms, and data mining of social media platforms.

The candidate will be provided a desk in the School’s dedicated PhD 
office and a dedicated budget for research expenses is included with the 
Scholarship. The School of Information and Communications Studies has a 
healthy cohort of 10+ PhD students.

Substantive research area:

The post holder will be supervised by Dr Bastos, whose research 
addresses the cross-effects between online and offline social networks, 
including the association between geography and network formation, the 
direction of homophily, and the elapsed effects of online activity on 
physical groups.

The substantive research question explored by the candidate may draw 
from communication and information studies, sociology, political 
communication, geographic information systems, and social network 
analysis or related areas.

Responsibilities:

The post holder will be expected to write and successfully defend a PhD 
thesis focused on the areas listed in the description of the post and 
meet the degree requirements set by UCD to advance through the PhD 
programme.

The candidate is also expected to produce research outputs in relation 
to their doctoral research and attend conferences to disseminate the 
research findings.

Conferences of interest to the post holder include the Association of 
Internet Researchers, the International Conference on Social Media & 
Society, the International Communication Association, the International 
Conference on Social Informatics, and the International Conference on 
Web and Social Media.

The candidate is expected to assist in the organisation of project 
meetings, workshops, and activities within the scope of this research area.

The candidate should take part in seminars, workshops, and events 
organised within the School and across University College Dublin that 
are relevant to the project.

Finally, the development of teaching skills and teaching activities will 
be considered at a later stage of the PhD in discussion with the 
candidate and the supervisors.

Role profile:

Candidates are expected to be familiar with or interested in developing 
skills in computational methods. Familiarity with leveraging digital 
media to the study of social phenomena is highly desirable. Other key 
skills include familiarity with data mining, text-as-data, network 
analysis, spatial statistics, machine-learning, and natural language 
processing.

Requirements:

Strong command of English is required. English proficiency at the C2 or 
C1 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages 
(CEFR) is advised. UCD Graduate Studies TOEFL and IELTS score 
requirements can be viewed here.

Candidates are expected to hold a Master’s Degree in Media and 
Communication, Information Sciences, Geography, Political Science, 
Sociology, Digital Methods or comparable Master’s Degree in the Social 
Sciences, preferably a research master/Mlitt.

Organisational experience and skills.

Preference will be given to candidates who can demonstrate experience 
and expertise in quantitative methods, including network analysis and 
modelling, spatial statistics, automated text analysis, and 
machine-learning in application material. Affinity for data-driven 
research, preferably as evidenced by your Master’s dissertation, 
publications, and research project.

Proven experience with R, Python, MATLAB, Julia, Ruby, JavaScript, 
TypeScript or equivalent object-oriented programming language is highly 
desirable.

Experience with the analysis of social media data is desirable.

Applications are open to students of all nationalities and backgrounds.

Apply:

Applications need to be submitted via UCD’s application portal. The 
candidate should apply to Programme Code W139 using the UCD Admissions 
online application portal (a €50 application fee applies).

The School of Information and Communication Studies requires PhD 
applicants to submit their curriculum vitae, an applicant statement, and 
a personal statement. Candidates are advised to describe their research 
interests, explain why they believe this position fits their profile, 
and include a brief description of the topic they would like to explore 
in their PhD project. In addition to that, applicants should submit a 
writing sample, preferably a piece that has been published, as 
additional information.

Applications will be reviewed through our system of open, transparent, 
and merit-based recruitment of researchers.

For questions related to this post please contact Marco Bastos at 
(marco.bastos /at/ ucd.ie)



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