Assistant Professor, Washington University Information School, Seattle, WA
Posted October 16, 2020
Description:
he University of Washington Information School seeks a creative, collaborative, and forward-thinking scholar, who demonstrates excellence in research and education, to join our faculty in forging a more just and sustainable future. The successful candidate will be expected to explore information-based approaches to understand and address systemic challenges to urgent global problems. The Assistant Professor will be expected to (1) promote equity in health & wellbeing, (2) encourage environmental sustainability and resilience, or (3) fosters a more informed, just, and equitable democratic society. We are open to a broad interpretation of these focus areas, including work that intersects these areas. The Assistant Professor will be expected to engage critically with race and technology in one or more of these areas. We welcome individuals who are excited by, able to thrive in, and eager to contribute to our diverse, intellectually stimulating, interdisciplinary environment that respects a wide variety of research traditions and methods, and is open to new areas and methods.
Competitive applicants will have demonstrated an ability to implement research and teaching approaches that lead to significant social impacts. The Assistant Professor will be expected to specialize in the ways that information and technology, including their intersections with race, ethnicity, and other categories of difference, can and have been used to exclude, marginalize, privilege, and harm people, societies, and the environment (e.g., via racially-biased training data or algorithms, misleading digital representations and data visualizations, inaccessible user interfaces, racialized surveillance practices, exclusionary data schemas, selective data collection practices, unobtainable technologies for learning, inadequate Internet access in racialized, Indigenous, and rural communities, inscrutable face and image classifiers, deep fakes, and many other ways). We also welcome candidates who explore the political, cultural, and social mobilization of information technologies and practices to subvert and redress harms, build networks and resilience among marginalized peoples, advance environmental and social movements, and or that otherwise examine how information and technology create opportunities that engender greater justice, equality, equity, and wellbeing. The Assistant Professor will be expected to excel in their work while also demonstrating its possible social limitations and harms, and who appreciate the larger ramifications of their work, especially concerning matters of social justice.
The UW Information School is dedicated to hiring faculty who will enhance diversity and equal opportunity in higher education through their research, teaching, and service. As information systems and institutions serve increasingly diverse and global constituencies, it is vital to understand the ways in which differences in gender, class, race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, national and cultural boundaries, national origin, worldview, intellectual origin, and other identities can both divide us and offer us better ways of thinking and working. The Information School faculty are committed to preparing professionals who work in an increasingly diverse and global society by promoting equity and justice for all individuals, actively working to eliminate barriers and obstacles created by institutional discrimination.
Our new colleague will join a broad-based, inclusive information school, whose faculty members pursue their scholarship, teaching, and service across multiple degree programs. The University of Washington is an institution that encourages inclusive research and community outreach, situated between the Puget Sound and Lake Washington, in the city of Seattle, on the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. Seattle is a rapidly growing, dynamic, and diverse metropolitan area with a leading technology sector and vibrant civic sector.
The position is a full-time 9-month tenure track appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor with an anticipated start date of September 1, 2021. All University of Washington faculty engage in teaching, research and service.
How to Apply:
The original job posting with full description can be found here. Apply using the job portal found there.
Preference will be given to applications submitted by November 15, 2020. Selected candidates will be invited for campus visits. Application packages should include: CV, a letter of intent that clearly indicates how the candidate’s work complements and extends the iSchool and our areas of strategic visibility, research statement, teaching statement, diversity statement*, two sample publications or scholarly works, and names and contact information for three references. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for letters of reference. Please contact Dr. Chirag Shah, Chair, Tenure Track Search Committee, with questions ([email protected]).