Duration: 2 years
Job Description: We are seeking a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to join a research project focused on the development of a novel NLP-based surveillance system for monitoring substance-related harms. This project is a collaboration between the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA), the Urban Data Centre at the University of Toronto, and is funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Enhanced Surveillance for Chronic Disease Program.
Key Responsibilities:
- Lead the development and implementation of advanced NLP algorithms to analyze data from publicly available media channels.
- Collaborate with a multidisciplinary team to integrate AI technologies into the surveillance system.
- Conduct rigorous data analysis and synthesis to provide real-time insights into substance use trends and harms across Canada.
- Publish and present research findings in top-tier computational linguistics conferences such as ACL, EMNLP, NAACL,NAACL, LREC, COLING and others.
- Engage with stakeholders, including health promoters, first responders, and other healthcare professionals, to refine the surveillance system’s capabilities.
- Mentor graduate students and collaborate with other researchers on related projects within the center.
Qualifications:
- PhD in Computer Science, Linguistics, Information Technology, or a related field, with a focus on Natural Language Processing.
- Demonstrated research excellence with at least one first-author publication in top-tier computational linguistics conferences (ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, etc.).
- Strong programming skills in Python, and experience with NLP and machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or similar.
- Proven ability to handle large datasets and perform complex statistical analyses.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to present complex information to non-specialist audiences.
- A collaborative spirit and proven experience working in interdisciplinary teams.
Application Process: Interested candidates should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, a brief description of past research accomplishments, a representative publication, and contact information for three references. All applications should be submitted to Dr. Vijay Mago (vmago@yorku.ca)
Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled.