Career Center

The Data Science Institute of Columbia University invites applications to fill positions of Research Scientists (Open Rank).

Columbia University is a leader in the burgeoning field of data science, with depth drawing from foundational strengths in computer science, machine learning, statistics and operations research, and the breadth of applications in every field of inquiry offered university-wide. Founded in 2012, Columbia's Data Science Institute has 300 affiliated faculty from 12 different schools across the University. The Institute provides research and educational opportunities in data science as applied to the biomedical sciences, the natural sciences, the social sciences, public policy, law, business, finance, media, engineering, the arts and humanities. The Institute boasts a robust industrial affiliates program with opportunities to collaborate with domestic, international and multinational organizations and strong ties with New York City's economic development engine, including the dynamic and rapidly growing start-up community.

The Data Science Institute at Columbia University promotes "Data for Good" through its mission: to advance the state-of-the-art in data science; to transform all fields, professions, and sectors through the application of data science; and to ensure the responsible use of data to benefit society.

The Data Science Institute invites applications for highly qualified researchers who have strong, distinctive research agendas or the potential to create them, and whose strengths complement our existing or emerging research in data science foundations and domain applications. We are open to candidates from a wide range of backgrounds, but especially candidates with a strong technical background in areas such as artificial intelligence, causal reasoning, machine learning, natural language processing, optimization, security and privacy, and statistics. We envision a successful candidate to become the leader of a significant research initiative within the Institute. To this end, we expect successful candidates to:

- Conduct independent cutting-edge research in the foundations and/or application of data science or related fields, and/or be involved in interdisciplinary research through a collaboration between the Data Science Institute and the various schools at the University;

- Identify and attract external funding to support their research agenda;

- Reinforce Columbia's Data Science Institute as an academic leader in data science.

We expect research scientists to establish and advocate for best practices in scientific reproducibility of all results, and to promote the ethical use of data.

Candidates must have a Ph.D.

Candidates for Associate Research Scientist are strongly encouraged, but not required to have postdoctoral experience. Candidates for Research Scientist or Senior Research Scientist must have a strong record of attracting grant support and supervising graduate research students and/or post-docs. Additionally, all candidates are expected to have:

- A record of outstanding research, commensurate with years of professional experience, as evidenced by publications, grants, software outputs, and other scholarly measures of impact;

- A record of successful research collaborations;

- Excellent written and oral presentation skills for reaching audiences both in and out of one's own field;

- Strong interpersonal, organizational, and communication skills, and the willingness to work with multiple researchers, technical staff, post-docs, and doctoral students;

- Strong analytical, computational, and quantitative abilities.

- 

Experience managing large and complex projects involving a wide variety of constituents and stakeholders;

- Experience participating in open source software development; significant contributions to open source projects are highly valued for this role;

- Experience with statistical software;

- Good at multitasking and assisting project members;

- Skilled at interacting with internal and external partners;

- Ability to stay abreast of and adopt industry best practices;

- Industry experience is a plus, particularly if it includes a record of product impact, patents and technology transfer

Columbia University is an Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran