04 Postdoctoral Fellowship at Umea University, Sweden 

The project is a collaboration between clinical, translational and basic science researchers with experience in surgery, pathology, diabetes research and 3D high-resolution imaging of the pancreas. Principal investigator is Oskar Franklin, MD, PhD at the Dept of Diagnostics and Intervention, Surgery and the project is a collaboration with Professor Ulf Ahlgren at the Dept of Medical and Translational Biology. The main part of the work will be carried out in Prof. Ahlgrens lab (webpage). The project uses innovative methods developed for diabetes research onto human pancreatic cancer applications, to improve understandning of microenviromental changes and applications for early detection and treatment. The work involved hands-on laborative and analytic work on samples from patients that are treated for pancreatic diseases. There will be opportunities to study both pancreatic cancer and diabetes using these techniques and to develop novel protocols for improved imaging and analysis. There will be opportunities for national and international collaboration.

The postdoctoral fellow position is open to candidates with scientific background in computer science, philosophy, AI, and related areas. Interdisciplinary interests and research focus are key, especially for what regards the interplay between philosophy of science and social AI.

While the position is administratively hosted by the Department for Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies, the postdoctoral fellow will be practically attached to and expected to participate in both Philosophy and Computer Science research communities. Depending on the main research focus and scientific background of the candidate, the postdoctoral fellow will be more active in the research environment of either the Department of Computing Science or the Department for Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies. Examples of research focus include: 

• Examining foundations, methodologies, and philosophical questions within and raised by Social AI research and its application.
• Examining ethical or sociotechnical challenges connected to Social AI research.
• Developing and assessing Social AI systems and approaches in ways informed by research in philosophy of science (e.g., philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of comparative psychology), philosophical ethics, or related areas
• Application of AI methods for supporting philosophy research (e.g. LLMs for recognizing underlying philosophical framework in arguments made by public figures)

The postdoctoral fellow will be  actively involved and expected to participate in both Philosophy and Computer Science research communities, as well as in the academic life of TAIGA.

The planned project is connected to the research environments  Embodied Interactive AI, Education and AI and Interpresence institute. 

Applicants will conduct research that has a clear relationship to the research at the research environments. A research plan (max. 4 pages) should be attached to the application, where it is clear what research the applicant wishes to conduct and how it relates to research at the research environments.

Possible research methods are spanning between relational neuroscience with brain imaging (multiple fNIRS) to qualitative explorations of human interaction and interplay with social AI in various forms, in collocated interaction and augmented (multiple Apple Vision Pro). By social AI is meant here everything from ChatGPT to Pepper robots, among other things in various learning situations. The duties include, among other things, planning research projects, carrying out empirical data collection, analyzing data, co-authoring scientific articles and actively participating in various research groups’ seminar activities.

The position is located at the Department of Psychology, and the research will take place in collaboration with researchers from the departments of computer science and education, as well as with international contacts. Some teaching may occur.

Global and European agreements highlight the urgency to monitor biodiversity. Furthermore, the new Nature Restoration Law will substantially increase the need for biodiversity monitoring in EU countries. Monitoring biodiversity, however, is very time demanding and costly due to the extensive expertise needed to identify species in different environments and the associated laborious field work. Environmental DNA (eDNA), the detection of DNA traces left in the environment by different organisms), has great potential to become an efficient tool in biodiversity monitoring.

The presently used eDNA methods have been shown to be well suited for temperate ecosystems, but commonly fail to detect key species in ecosystems located at more northern latitudes. Many sensitive ecosystems in Northern Sweden and Finland are under pressure from e.g. climate change and forest management practises. The overall objective is to develop efficient and standardized eDNA sampling and processing methods tailored to Northern habitats and species.

The planned postdoctoral work consists of two parts. In the first part, the needs and potential for monitoring of species and ecosystems in northern Sweden and Finland using eDNA are assessed. The suitability of eDNA methods and tools already available for biodiversity sampling is evaluated, and how they can be used or optimized to be functional in northern habitats is analyzed. In this, we will work with stakeholders using or in need of eDNA tools for various biodiversity sampling tasks, surveying their needs through a questionnaire, interviews and workshops