COSMOS - Assistant III

Type of Position: Researchers

Job Type: Temporary (Fixed Term)

Workstudy Position: No

Sponsorship Available: No

The Extra Help Assistant will help develop socio-computational models to advance our understanding of cyber campaigns run on social media grounded in the dynamics of various social and communication processes such as group formation, activation, decentralized decision making, and collective action. The Assistant will aid cyber forensics and deep web search-based methodologies, assist with extracting relevant open‑source information in a guided snowball data collection manner, and support the development of predictive models of deviant socio‑technical behaviors on social media platforms.

The position reports to Prof. Nitin Agarwal, Maulden‑Entergy Endowed Chair & Donaghey Distinguished Professor, and Director, COSMOS Research Center at UA‑Little Rock.

Required Education and/or

Experience:

• PhD degree from an accredited institution of higher learning; or
• Master’s degree from an accredited institution of higher learning and currently enrolled in a PhD program at UALR.

Preferred Education and/or

Experience:

• Extensive research experience in social media mining, computational modeling of social science theories, working with social network analysis tools, and examining cyber campaigns conducted on social media.
• Experience in operational research, optimization tools, information theory, multiplex networks analysis, computer programming, and data management.

• Assist with social media analysis for the research projects, including hypothesis generation, data collection, cleaning, preprocessing, analyzing findings, and drafting research findings for conferences and scientific venues.
• Write software modules transitioning research to a tool.
• Assist with online information environment analysis.
• Provide inputs for training stakeholders on research and tools.
• Mentor or monitor graduate/undergraduate students working on the project.
• Assist in preparing reports and publications.
• Perform other duties and provide additional support as assigned.

• Extensive knowledge of computational social science and social network analysis.
• Extensive knowledge of group analysis on social networks.
• Extensive knowledge of operational research.
• Extensive knowledge of systems thinking analysis.
• Extensive knowledge of complex network analysis.
• Extensive knowledge of online/offline environment analysis.
• Extensive knowledge and expertise with social media mining and cyber forensics.
• Research experience in game theory and decision making.
• Research experience with decomposition optimization analysis.
• Research experience with agent‑based modeling.
• Research experience with multiplex network analysis.
• Research experience with information theory.
• Research experience with control theory and feedback analysis in social media.
• Research experience with dynamic network analysis.
• Research experience with examining cyber campaigns on social media.
• Research experience with examining contexts on social media.
• Experience with transitioning research into usable tools.
• Computer programming skills and data management skills.
• Ability to interact with people of diverse ethnic backgrounds.
• Communication, writing, and public speaking skills.
• Effective organizational skills.

$24.00 per hour.

• Curriculum Vitae
• Listing of Publications
• List of three Professional References (name, email, business title)
• Resume
• Statement of Research Philosophy

Prof. Nitin Agarwal, Maulden‑Entergy Endowed Chair & Donaghey Distinguished Professor, and Director, COSMOS Research Center at UA‑Little Rock, nxagarwal

No Background Check Required.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock is committed to providing a safe campus community. We conduct background checks for applicants being considered for employment. Background checks include a criminal background check and a sex offender registry check. For certain positions, there may also be financial (credit) background checks, MVR…