Roster – Postdoc in Semantics and Environmental Modeling


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The Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) offers a full-time postdoctoral scientist position in order to support the research activities of Research Line (RL) 5 on Integrated Modelling of Coupled Human-Natural Systems.

The RL generates multidisciplinary scientific knowledge from human-nature interdependence to address complex sustainability problems through artificial intelligence (AI). The goal of the RL is to provide environmental data, models and understanding by retrieving, evaluating and integrating the existing information in order to support an effective policy-making where nature counts. Besides Ecosystem Services, the RL also tackles Natural Capital Accounting, Food Security, Marine Spatial Planning, and Renewable Energy.

Job description: During the past decade, the RL has envisioned and built the ARtificial Intelligence for Environment and Sustainability platform, a technology that integrates network-available data and model components through semantics and machine reasoning. Its underlying open-source software (k.LAB) handles the full end-to-end process of data and model integration to predict complex change. It also supports selection of the most appropriate data and models using cloud technology and following an open data paradigm: the resulting insight remains open and available to society at large, and becomes a base for further computations, contributing to an ever-increasing knowledge base. For the first time, it is possible to develop a way to consistently characterize and publish data and models for their integration in predictive models, building and field-testing languages and technologies that have eluded researchers to date.

Experience/skills required: We are looking for an individual who can support strategic activities related to integrated data science and collaborative, integrated modelling on the semantic web (semantic meta-modelling).

The selected candidate will:

Contribute to the ARIES (ARtificial Intelligence for Environment and Sustainability) platform, a semantic web infrastructure that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to build computational solutions to environmental, policy and sustainability problems. This technology, based on machine reasoning, machine learning, distributed computing and high-performance, multi-disciplinary and multi-paradigm system modelling, is the flagship product of the Integrated Modelling Partnership (IMP) which is expected to serve a growing number of worldwide users (from academia, governments, NGOs and industry) in the years to come.

In particular this is a postdoctoral  research position dedicated to the use of semantics for solving complex sustainability problems. We are looking for an individual who can coordinate the work to establish the most comprehensive knowledge base to implement a Semantic Web for Sustainability.

The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable. To enable the encoding of semantics with the data, technologies such as Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Web Ontology Language (OWL) are used. These technologies are used to formally represent metadata. For example, ontology can describe concepts, relationships between entities, and categories of things. These embedded semantics offer significant advantages such as reasoning over data and operating with heterogeneous data source

The selected candidate should have:

  1. A PhD in Computer Science, ICT,  Computational Linguistics, Philosophy of Information or any field related to the Semantic Web
  2. Strong analytical skills and an ability to learn quickly and to think outside the box.  Our work is very innovative and you should expect your job to be both as intellectually challenging and as rewarding. A strong motivation and a desire to learn and explore new technologies are a must.
  3. A strong background in the development of Ontologies for scientific applications.
  4. Experience with RDF, OWL, Ontology editors (e.g., Protégée).
  5. Exposure to Upper Ontologies (e.g. DOLCE, BFO. SUMO),  Observation Ontologies and Domain Ontologies (e.g. ENVO)
  6.  Programming ability in any language, particularly Java, is considered an asset
  7.  Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
  8.  Excellent written and oral command of English.
  9. Ability to work independently, with a diverse, multi-location and multi-lingual team.

Term of contract

 The position will be initially offered for a period of at least 1 + 1 years starting in January 2021, with a probation period of 2 months based on the performance of the work.

Salary

The position will carry excellent conditions of work. The salary will be in the range at BC3 for a postdoctoral researcher.

Location

Basque Centre for Climate Change, Leioa, Spain.

As a HR Excellence awarded institution, BC3 is committed to conciliate research-academic requirements and family duties. BC3 is particularly concerned with creating equality opportunities for people. Women with relevant qualifications are therefore strongly encouraged to apply for the position.

Application procedure:

Those interested should include in their request:

  1. 2-page CV
  2. One-page motivation letter
  3. Contact details of two referees

Deadline

20 January 2022 (CET 17:00).

 

Informal enquiries can be made to Ferdinando Villa (ferdinando.villa@bc3research.org) and Stefano Balbi (stefano.balbi@bc3research.org) noting in the subject of the message “ARIES Semantics & ML scientist”

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María de Maeztu Excellence Unit 2023-2027 Ref. CEX2021-001201-M, funded by MCIN/AEI /10.13039/501100011033

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