University Assistant postdoctoral

Universität Wien

Job description:

The University of Vienna is a community of over 10,000 individuals, including approximately 7,500 academic staff members, who passionately pursue answers to the profound questions that shape our future. Fueled by curiosity and a deep sense of duty, they contribute invaluable insights to research and teaching, enriching our society. Are you inspired and driven by the desire to make a meaningful impact? We are currently seeking a/an

University Assistant postdoctoral

Founded in 1885, the Department of Geography and Regional Research is the oldest and largest geography department in Austria. It is home to about 100 researchers in 10 working groups and 3,400 students. Since its inception, it has not only grown dynamically but also continuously broadened its focus. Since the beginning, it has accommodated both human and physical geography. The department also has been recognized for its contributions to geoinformatics and cartography, including a highly successful master’s program. This interdisciplinary basis in computational, social, and natural sciences provides a dynamic and inspiring environment for researchers to address the grand challenges of our time.

The post doc position is part of the research group “Spatial Data Science and GeoCommunication” led by professor Krzysztof Janowicz consisting of international researchers including PhD students, postdocs, faculty, scientific programmers, and other project personnel with a diverse set of backgrounds and with expertise spanning knowledge graphs, GeoAI, research data management, geo-semantics, geographic information retrieval, geo-visualization, social sensing, and related fields. 

We are interested in providing computational methods to improve the representation, retrieval, integration, analysis, visualization, and communication of spatial and spatiotemporal data with a wide range of applications including humanitarian relief and disaster mitigation, social sensing, location-based services, environmental intelligence, transportation, privacy, and so on. We are also interested in conflicts (at various scales) and their study. Historically, our work has often connected information science with cognitive and behavioral geography and cognitive science more broadly as well as with concepts from philosophy including ontology, epistemology, ethics, and so forth. This also explains our current interest in work on (Geo)AI ethics, bias, sustainability, and alignment.

We seek a self-motivated, creative, and enthusiastic scientist who will contribute to the development of the research group. The position offers the opportunity to develop an independent research profile while working closely with an international team at the forefront of Spatial Data Science and GeoAI.

Your personal sphere of play:

Contribute creatively and independently to our research. We mostly work at the intersection of top-down (e.g., knowledge representation and reasoning) and bottom-up (e.g., machine learning) methods to study the representation of geographic categories and processes. While we welcome applicants from a broad range of themes and academic backgrounds (also beyond information science), an ideal candidate would share our interest for geographic and computational aspects of how humans and machines categorize and thereby construct the world around them.

Your future tasks:

Active participation in research, teaching & administration, which means:

• You contribute to the group’s development through outreach, networking, editorial work, and co-organization of events such as conferences and workshops
• You contribute to and lead international publications and presentations
• You acquire third-party funding on Austrian and European level
• Independent teaching (as defined by the collective agreement), mentoring, and supervision of students
• Maintaining and deepening the group's strong ties to industry, government agencies, and international partners

This is part of your personality:

• PhD / Doctorate in Geoinformatics/GIScience/Spatial Data Science or related fields, e.g. Geography, Cognitive Science, Information Science, Philosophy and Ethics, Data Science, Computer Science, Digital Humanities, Computational Social Science, Urban Data Science, or Transportation Science.
• Proven ability to publish in top-tier international journals and conferences
• Interest and experience in some of the our group's research areas
• Interest to engage with our large, international network of partners in industry, governments, and academia, including flexibility, e.g., due to travel
• Willingness to contribute to research management and growing our scientific community, e.g., coorganizing conferences
• Strong interest and enthusiasm for teaching, mentoring, and supporting student learning
• Competence in programming and spatial data processing and analysis
• Excellent team skills and ability to work in highly interdisciplinary and intercultural teams
• Experience in acquiring third party funding is a plus
• Experience in teaching and supervision of students is a plus
• Able to work (almost entirely) in English; German is a plus

What we offer:

Work-life balance: Our employees enjoy flexible working hours. Working from a domicile in Austria might be possible up to a certain extent upon agreement.

Inspiring working atmosphere: You are a part of an international academic team in a healthy and fair working environment.

Good public transport connections: Your workplace in the center of beautiful Vienna is easily accessible by public transport.

Internal further training & Coaching: Opportunity to deepen your skills on an ongoing basis. There are over 600 courses to choose from – free of charge.

Fixed-term contract and fair salary: The basic salary of EUR 4,932.90 (14 times a year), as of 02/01/2025 (MM/TT/YYYY), increases if we can credit professional experience.

Equal opportunities for all: We welcome every additional/new personality to the team!

It is that easy to apply:

• Letter of motivation
• Academic curriculum vitae (including a list of publications, a list of courses (if any), and a list of talks given)
• Concrete description of research interests and research agenda and how it relates to our group
• Contact details of people who could provide a letter of reference
• Academic and other relevant certificates

If you have any questions, please contact:

Krzysztof Janowicz  

krzysztof.janowicz@univie.ac.at

We look forward to new personalities in our team! 
The University of Vienna has an anti-discriminatory employment policy and attaches great importance to equal opportunities, the advancement of women and diversity. We lay special emphasis on increasing the number of women in senior and in academic positions among the academic and general university staff and therefore expressly encourage qualified women to apply. Given equal qualifications, preference will be given to female candidates.

University of Vienna. Space for personalities. Since 1365.

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​Application deadline: 10/03/2025 

Apply now