Postdoc position at Northwestern on evaluating AI/ML decision support

This is Jessica. I’m looking for a postdoc to work with me and Ken Holstein (CMU) on evaluation tools for AI-based decision support, with emphasis on elicitation challenges associated with specifying decision problems in real-world deployments. The postdoc is through Northwestern University Department of Computer Science. 

I’ll be at NeurIPS this Thursday afternoon through Sunday night if anyone wants to chat about the position there. 

Position description

The Department of Computer Science at Northwestern University is seeking an outstanding postdoctoral scholar for a research opportunity studying AI-assisted human decision-making under Dr. Jessica Hullman. The candidate will also collaborate with Dr. Ken Holstein of Carnegie Mellon University. We apply tools from statistics, decision theory, and human-computer interaction to better understand how to effectively design and deploy AI and ML models to support data-driven decision making. 

Potential projects to be led by the postdoc will address challenges associated with organizations’ use of models developed using standard AI/ML approaches in decision pipelines currently dominated by human experts. To responsibly integrate such models requires careful prospective and retrospective analysis to evaluate the impacts of the deployment on decision-making. Yet existing evaluation approaches risk misspecifying real-world decision problems, threatening the reliability of analyses. There is an opportunity to develop practically motivated yet theoretically rigorous methods for specifying and evaluating relevant decision problems to AI/ML deployments. 

The postdoctoral researcher will work in a collaborative, multidisciplinary-oriented computer science environment to identify and lead human-centered projects related to AI for decision support. 

Minimum Qualifications: Doctoral degree in computer science, statistics, information science, or related field, and an interest in AI/ML for decision support. Additionally, applicants should have:

• Interest in working in real-world contexts in collaboration with domain experts
• At least some exposure to human-centered design or human-computer interaction (HCI)
• At least some exposure to experiment design, particularly human subjects 

Ideally applicants will have also have the following: 

• Familiarity with statistical decision theory, other theories of decision-making, and/or mathematical models of human behavior
• Some prior experience in HCI and AI/ML 
• Interest and prior experience in system/software development or method development 

Interested applicants should send their CV, names and contact information for a minimum of three recommenders, two representative publications, and (optionally) a statement of interest to jhullman@northwestern.edu.