The Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University is accepting applications for a postdoctoral fellowship as part of the Canada Earth BioGenome Project (http://earthbiogenome.ca/). The anticipated start date will be March 2024 with a duration of 2 years. The postdoctoral fellow will take a leadership role in projects that use semantic methods and technologies to develop data architecture and software technologies for sharing knowledge across domains, and specifically, sharing between expert scientific knowledge and data from the genomics community and land-based knowledge experts for wildlife management and meeting declining biodiversity challenges.
Department Background Information
The Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University, in the city of Ottawa, is seeking a full-time Postdoctoral Fellow from March 1, 2024 to March 30, 2026. The Carleton Department of Geography and Environmental Studies a community of scholars concerned about the climate crisis, inequality, colonialism, and social and environmental injustice and how innovative use of theory, methods and technology can address grand challenges. Our department is a collegial, research-intensive group strongly committed to ensuring equity and expanding diversity.
Research Project Supervisor and Principal Investigator
The sponsoring faculty member will be Professor Peter Pulsifer. Dr. Pulsifer is the associate director of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre ( GCRC, https://gcrc.carleton.ca/index.html) and a specialist in geomatics and cartography, with a particular focus on supporting interoperability: the ability of (geographic) information systems to readily share information and operations and associated meaning. In the context of this project, data and information sharing is critical to integrating and linking many different kinds of knowledge and supporting interdisciplinary research.
Research Project Overview
The postdoctoral fellow will be engaged in software design, development and data science support for a number of projects, namely, the Canada Earth BioGenome Project as part of the Knowledge Mobilization Team. As part of a broader team of geographers, linguists and professional software developers, the postdoctoral fellow will develop software systems for sharing expert scientific knowledge and data from the genomics community with non-experts engaged in wildlife management in the Arctic and across Canada (including Indigenous Peoples). The focus for the position would be in the development of theory, methods, and software to implement cross-domain semantic models represented using semantic web standards and technologies (e.g., RDF, graph databases/triplestores, NoSQL and other databases). Software development and data science skills are necessary; desired experience includes semantic and ontology engineering with web development and semantic web (e.g., familiarity with linked open data, semantically expressive vocabularies; upper level, domain and application ontologies). A successful candidate will have proven research and software engineering skills and the ability to develop mature software components beyond pure research prototypes.
Salary
The postdoctoral fellow will be offered a salary of $67,000 per annum, with the additional ability to opt into an extended health and dental benefit plan. The postdoc will be considered unionized and will be a member of PSAC Local 77000. Information on this bargaining unit can be found here: https://psac77000.ca/.
Position Duties and Responsibilities
The successful application be responsible for leading a number of project research activities including but not limited to the following core responsibilities:
- Collaboratively developing knowledge representation models across a broad range of knowledge systems
- Working with other team members to design and implement semantic mediation architectures and software
- Visualization of natural, social and other systems with a focus on dynamic, interactive visualizations of network structures
- Successful collaborations with other research groups, industry, as well as open-source and community initiatives, for example, in the context of publicly funded collaborative research projects
- Investigate models and methods for efficient semantic indexing, aggregation, linking, and retrieval of comprehensive heterogeneous and distributed data sources. To this end, the postdoctoral fellow with work in a collaborative space to apply linguistic analysis methods (e.g., Natural Language Processing) as well as machine learning in combination with symbolic logic and interference mechanisms
- Establish robust and scalable workflows
- Develop and implement computational solutions
Job Requirements
This offer is subject to compliance with immigration laws of Canada and is conditional upon any approvals, authorization, visas and/or permits related to your employment, which may be required under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the regulations made pursuant to the Act and any other applicable law. In addition, this offer is conditional upon you obtaining and retaining the appropriate authorization to work in Canada from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) before and during your employment. You may not begin your employment or commence work until you hold the proper authorization to work in Canada. Should you fail to meet this condition, this offer shall be null and void. Please note that it is also your responsibility to maintain your immigration status allowing you to work in Canada throughout your employment. Temporary foreign workers are entitled to be informed about their rights in Canada. This document explains the rights of workers hired under the IMP: International Mobility Program: Get to know your rights while working in Canada
Accommodations and Accessibility
Should you require a copy of this posting in an alternate format, please contact us as soon as possible and we would be happy to get one to you in a timely manner. We believe in the importance of supporting on the-job success for the incumbent and are pleased to discuss and/or provide specific tools, resources or other requirements for day-to-day work requirements, as needed.
About Carleton University:
Carleton University is a dynamic and innovative research and teaching institution with a
national and international reputation as a leader in collaborative teaching and learning, research
and governance. To learn more about our university and the City of Ottawa, please visit
www.carleton.ca/provost.
Carleton University is committed to fostering diversity within its community as a source of
excellence, cultural enrichment, and social strength. We welcome those who would contribute
to the further diversification of our university including, but not limited to: women; visible
minorities; First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples; persons with disabilities; and persons of
any sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression. Carleton understands that career
paths vary. Legitimate career interruptions will in no way prejudice the assessment process and
their impact will be taken into careful consideration.
We thank all applicants for their interest, however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted. If contacted for an interview, please inform us should accommodation be required,
and arrangements will be made in a timely manner. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply.
How to Apply
Candidates that would like to apply for this fellowship opportunity are invited to submit their cover letter along with a resume/CV to Peter Pulsifer at ppulsifer@gcrc.carleton.ca by February 15th, 2024.