Research Assistant, Institute for Transport Studies

Fixed term for 36 months, Part time at 50% of the Full Time Equivalent

You will pursue activities that form a foundational component of a programme of research funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Living with Environmental Change Challenge Fellowship programme – the “ADAPT fellowship: smart approaches to influencing sustainable behaviour change”, held by the Principal Investigator, Dr Kate Pangbourne.

The over-arching vision of the project is to develop more effective methods of influencing people to act voluntarily in relation to adapting to and mitigating environmental change. Focusing on the transport domain, the objectives are to investigate:
(1) whether there are systematic patterns of argumentation in existing material aimed at influencing the public to change behaviour;
(2) if existing communication material can be better matched to individual preferences in relation to argument structure, content or framing, potentially by introducing evidence from digital-born Big Data; and
(3) to use the findings of (1) and (2) to create and test algorithms for use in public-facing websites or mobile apps for personalising persuasive arguments to support behaviour change.

As a result of this work there will be new ways to communicate persuasive arguments and solutions for making large and small changes to the way we travel. We will then be able to make decisions about our daily transport needs with confidence, knowing that we have the best information about the consequences for ourselves and for wider society.

You will work primarily on dataset building and analysis tasks that address Objective One. You will be working in a small interdisciplinary team lead by the Principal Investigator, with another Research Assistant who will be recruited to work on Objective Two. Your work will be a valuable contribution to the achievement of the project vision, which in turn supports the strategic objectives of the Institute for Transport Studies. The Institute's primary purpose is to advance the understanding of transport activity, operations and use, and to develop skills and best practice among transport professionals and decision-makers. Thus you will also contribute to writing high-quality research outputs and participate in activities which support knowledge transfer and public engagement with research.

You will have a 2:1 or first class degree level qualification or a Masters level qualification in a relevant topic such as computational linguistics, computing science, artificial intelligence, philosophy or a cognate discipline. You will also have experience of writing project reports with the ability to work methodically and consistently. Experience of programming skills, particularly using scripting languages (such as Python) for data management and analysis is desirable.

The University of Leeds’ commitment to women in science has been recognised with a national accolade. The University has received the Athena SWAN Bronze Award and the Faculty of Environment holds the Athena SWAN Bronze Award in recognition of our success in recruiting, retaining and developing/promoting women in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET). We are proud of our commitment to equality and inclusiveness.

The University also offers family friendly policies including generous maternity and paternity leave; full details of the policies can be found here http://hr.leeds.ac.uk/homepage/4/policies.

Informal enquiries may be made to Dr Kate Pangbourne, tel +44 (0)113 343 1552, email K.J.Pangbourne@leeds.ac.uk

Click here for further information about working at the University of Leeds www.leeds.ac.uk/info/20025/university_jobs