Postdoctoral Associate Job Description

Position

The MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE), at the MIT Sloan School of Management, is seeking a Full-time Postdoctoral Associate, available July 2023 for a minimum of one year, and up to three years.

Employer

MIT Sloan School of Management’s Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE)

Supervisor

Professors Dean Eckles and Manish Raghavan

Location

Cambridge, MA

Job Description

The IDE seeks to hire a Postdoctoral Associate as part of a research program on privacy-preserving technologies, synthetic data, fairness and accountability, and causal inference. This program is directed by Professors Dean Eckles and Manish Raghavan.

This research program is working to understand and advance techniques for sharing and using data while limiting what is revealed about any individual or organization. We are particularly interested in how privacy-preserving technologies interface with recent developments in high-dimensional statistical machine learning (including foundation models), questions about fairness of downstream decisions, and with causal inference. Applications include some in government and public policy (e.g., related to US Census Bureau data products) and increasing use in multiple industries (e.g., tech companies, finance).

Requirements

Highly motivated postdoctoral researcher with:

• Expertise in computer science, mathematical statistics, machine learning, econometrics, data privacy, or related areas.
• Knowledge of foundational ideas in privacy-preserving technologies. Deeper expertise in differential privacy, synthetic data, or formal work on fairness is strongly desired.
• Ability to effectively collaborate with academics and industry researchers, and engage with managers and executives.
• Strong communication and presentation skills, with fluency in English (verbal and written).
• PhD in statistics, computer science, mathematics, or related areas, conferred prior to start date.

Salary

Commensurate with experience, and competitive with similar positions.

To apply

Please send a CV, letter of intent, and research sample to IDE Executive Director David Verrill (dverrill@mit.edu, with copy to jtegos@mit.edu) by May 15, 2023. We will review applications on a rolling basis.

About the MIT Sloan School of Management and Initiative on the Digital Economy

The MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE – ide.mit.edu) is a team of internationally recognized thought leaders and researchers examining how people and businesses work, interact, and prosper in a time of rapid digital transformation.  Key elements of our work include a robust research (35 projects across six “pillars” of research) and publication agenda; convenings for scholars, practitioners, funders, and policymakers focused on the future of work; and public communications via leading national and international media outlets that help to amplify our findings to even broader, non-specialist audiences.  This interconnected agenda, which builds on more than a decade of related work at MIT, has enabled the IDE to become a prominent, trusted, and non-partisan source of fact-based research at the center of a large and growing network of experts who are shaping a brighter digital future.

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