Assistant Professor of Humanities Data Science

Position Overview

School / Campus / College: College of Arts and Sciences

Organization: Data Science in the Humanities

Title: Assistant Professor of Humanities Data Science

Position Details

Position Description

The Division of the Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Humanities Data Science. The successful candidate will be appointed to one of the twelve departments in the Division: Asian Languages and Literature, Cinema and Media Studies, Classics, Comparative History of Ideas, English, French and Italian Studies, Germanics, Linguistics, Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, Scandinavian Studies, Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Spanish and Portuguese.

The successful candidate for this position:

• will be expected to create, analyze, use, present and communicate data, broadly understood, in disciplines of language, literature, and culture
• will be expected to explore a variety of forms of data including large historical or contemporary corpora, textual archives, digital media and genres, or online datasets
• will be expected to engage a range of analytical techniques and methods of analysis 
• and will be expected to investigate questions and challenges posed by data science and by data, such as the role of bias in algorithms and artificial intelligence

Since this is a cross-disciplinary position, the successful applicant will also be expected to work across departmental and disciplinary boundaries, and contribute to the development of existing and new cross-disciplinary curricula and programs.

In particular, this position has been created in conjunction with the establishment of a new minor in Data Science intended for Social Science and Humanities students (http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/single-pages/data-science-minor/). The candidate hired into this position will dedicate 25% of their teaching and service responsibilities to this program, with the remainder determined within the context of the appointing department. The successful candidate will be expected to take a leading role in the minor, including developing and teaching courses in the required Data Skills and Data Studies categories, and serving on the Steering and Curriculum Committees of the Data Science minor.

Candidates should in addition be prepared to take full advantage of the rich array of resources at the UW for research and teaching in data science as well as in the digital humanities, including the Simpson Center for the Humanities, the eScience Institute, and the Open Scholarship Commons in the UW Libraries.

The candidate is also expected to actively contribute to the diversity, equity and inclusivity goals of their potential department, the Humanities Division, and the University (as articulated in departmental statements and in the UW Diversity Blueprint: http://www.washington.edu/diversity/diversity-blueprint/). University of Washington faculty engage in teaching, research and service. This position has an anticipated start date of September 2021, and will have a 9-month service period.

Qualifications

Applicants should, by the start of the appointment, have PhD in hand, or foreign equivalent, in a field consistent with an appointment in one of the twelve departments in the Division of the Humanities.

The successful candidate should have an active research agenda; a record of innovative and effective teaching and student mentoring; and a record of contribution to departmental or institutional diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Instructions

Priority will be given to applicants who submit the following materials by January 22:

• A cover letter that describes the candidate’s suitability for this position and explains how the candidate’s experiences, activities, and goals will lead to success in a cross-disciplinary position
• CV
• Research statement, not to exceed one page, describing present projects and future directions
• A representative example of research (such as a chapter, article, or a link to an online project or a digital tool)
• A teaching portfolio, which should provide evidence of teaching excellence and may include such items as: example syllabi, lecture videos, website links for courses or student activities, or digital tools created by the candidate
• A statement, not to exceed one page, on how their work would contribute to the diversity, equity and inclusivity goals of their department, the Humanities Division, and the University (as articulated in the UW Diversity Blueprint: http://www.washington.edu/diversity/diversity-blueprint/)
• Three letters of recommendation

Because applicants are expected to come from a variety of disciplinary orientations, traditional and nontraditional backgrounds, resulting in different professional profiles, applicants are welcomed in any of the above materials to provide details that can help to contextualize their dossier. Such details might include experiences, aspects of training, outreach, teaching or research that are felt to contribute to a distinctive professional profile.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

University of Washington is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All
qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed,
religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, genetic information,
gender identity or expression, age, disability, or protected veteran status.