ETH Zurich's Chair of Sociology, in particular of Modeling and Simulation, has an interdisciplinary focus, bringing together sociologists, physicists, political scientists, and computer scientists in order to answer fundamental social science questions using a quantitative approach. In particular, it uses a combination of modeling, simulation, data mining and experiments to address fundamental questions concerning the way our society works. The chair led by Prof. Dirk Helbing, the scientific coordinator of the FuturICT project (www.futurict.eu, http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.2313), is looking for
One highly motivated Doctoral Student
with a background in agent-based modeling and/or quantitative complexity and systems science for the ERC Advanced Investigator Grant “Momentum”.
The doctoral candidate would be part of an ambitious project entitled “Modeling the Emergence of Social Complexity and Order: How Individual and Societal Complexity Co-Evolve” (pending final signature). The project aims to model and simulate social interactions between sophisticated agents with cognitive capabilities and the resulting complex dynamics on the macro-level, including phenomena such as self-organization, emergence, multi-stability, and history-dependence in the formation of cooperation, social norms, and culture. Research subjects of particular interest are: evolutionary game theory; agent-based modeling and computational social science; complexity; social cooperation and social norms; reputation; evolutionary competition; human social evolution; conflict, revolutions, and/or war; simulation of the early stages of cultural evolution; artificial societies; social innovations and socio-inspired technologies; global real-time measurement of socio-economic activities.
Excellent English language skills, social skills, team spirit, and international experience are needed. We also expect the candidate to appreciate collaborating in a multi-disciplinary and multicultural team in order to jointly and systematically address grand scientific challenges such as the ones outlined in this paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.3883.
Candidates should send their application materials in one single pdf file (<5 MB), including a short motivational letter, their CV and exam documents (A-levels, bachelor, master or diploma, and PhD). 2 to 3 letters of recommendation should also be sent directly to us by recommenders. Applicants are requested to submit their materials until January 31, 2013, at the button below to: ETH Zürich, Mr. Rolf Oertli, Human Resources, 8092 Zürich.
Apply online