Tenure Track as Associate Senior Lecturer in Mathematical Statistics - Befattningen är under tillsättning eller redan tillsatt, och det är inte längre möjligt att lämna in en ansökan

The department of mathematics and mathematical statistics invites applicants for a position as an Associate Senior Lecturer in Mathematical Statistics with specialization in compressive sensing (CS) and statistical learning (SL) with sparsity. The position comes with resources for five post-doc years, one graduate student, and costs related to the project at a level of 60 kSEK yearly.

Background
The expansion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most exciting developments of the 21st century. The centre Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems, and Software Program (WASP) is launching a program to develop the mathematics of AI. This call is part of the program.

The position aims to develop new mathematical, statistical and computational methodology for intelligent CS and SL, establish the theoretical framework, and explore their applications in AI, including medical imaging, automated quality control, and self-driving cars. Understanding and exploiting sparsity to extract useful information from big datasets with purpose of making optimal decisions will be the main focus for this position.

The employment
The applicant should contribute to the build-up of the research environment on mathematics for AI, with focus on CS and SL with sparsity, and supervise PhD students and postdocs. We are primarily searching for applicants who work on emerging CS and SL techniques, but will also consider candidates that work in depth on one of these two topics.  The description of the applicant’s intended research will be given great significance in the evaluation process.

You are expected to work independently and your main focus should be to develop novel theory in CS and SL for AI. Education at the department will offer an opportunity to supervise qualified degree projects in collaboration with external partners. You should also actively seek external funding.

The employment as Associate Senior Lecturer (biträdande universitetslektor in Swedish) is a 6 year position consisting of five year research and one year pedagogical qualification. At the end of this employment period, an Associate Senior Lecturer has the right, after requesting, to be examined for a promotion to Senior Lecturer at Umeå University.

Requirements
The applicant should have a doctoral degree in mathematics, mathematical statistics, or equivalent academic competence. Priority should be given to candidates who have completed their doctoral degree no more than five years before the deadline for application.

The selection will be based on the degree of scientific competence, primarily assessed from publications. Additionally, the degree of pedagogical competence and administrative and other competence of importance for the subject area and tasks in the position will be assessed. Also, the ability to independently organize, lead and manage projects will be considered. The applicant must have international research experience and documented knowledge that strengthens the competence in the research field in Sweden. The applicant must also be able to demonstrate an ability to work, collaborate, and communicate in a responsive and independent way, in contexts both inside and outside of academia. The applicant must be fluent in oral and written English.

The applicant must have contributed in CS theory or SL with sparsity methodology development. Achievements of new CS theory such as statistical CS, dynamic CS and new SL with sparsity are of particular interest for the position. Theoretical properties of general regularizations, numerical methods for large-scale optimization, and statistical inference methods for sparse data are specific areas of interest. Experience of successful development of mathematical and statistical methods for analysis of big data and experience of interdisciplinary research projects will be meritorious, as will a documented ability to attract competitive research funding.

Pedagogic competence should be in mathematics or mathematical statistics. Documented experience of teaching at first-cycle and second-cycle (basic and advanced level) and supervision of degree theses and pedagogical development work are meritorious.

Administrative competence should be the ability to develop and lead activities and staff at a university and the ability to establish collaboration between research and education at all levels, within the subject area of the position and with other academic subject disciplines. A well-documented ability to lead, organize and develop research activities is meritorious.

Documented successful educational and professional activities in mathematics or mathematical statistics, and documented successful experience of collaboration between research and education are meritorious.

Application
The application should include:

• Personal letter, including contact details 
• CV
• List of publications 
• Statement of academic work
• Statement of pedagogic work (see instructions in link)
• Statement of development and management of activities and staff 
• Statement of collaboration with the surrounding society and popular science work 
• A research plan, maximum of 6 pages in length, which describes the research and issues you wish to investigate as a part of the employment and how you could contribute to the corresponding research projects linked to WASP strategic areas.
• Certified copies of relevant degree certificates 
• Copies of at most 10 relevant publications, numbered in accordance to the list of publications
• Two references, including contact details 

Your application should be submitted through Umeå University’s digital recruitment system Varbi on 2018-11-16 at the latest.

More information
Please contact Professor Jun Yu, +46-(0)90-786 51 27, jun.yu@umu.se or Head of the Department Åke Brännström, +46-(0)90-786 78 62, ake.brannstrom@umu.se