?The Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education in the School of Education and Human Development at University of Virginia is seeking highly qualified applicants for a Postdoctoral Research Associate position. Work focuses on conducting high quality research related to two studies of how neural networks can be used to identify teaching and learning activities in videos of elementary mathematics and reading/language arts classrooms. These studies are funded by National Science Foundation and Schmidt Futures. This position is a postdoctoral research associate position that is term limited from 1 to 3 years and is contingent upon the continuation of grant funding and job performance.

Specific job duties for this position include:

• Helping design and lead annotation training; this includes training others to annotate video labels in video recordings of elementary mathematics and reading lessons, bound teachers in these video recordings, and annotate audio labels in transcripts of these lessons.

• Annotating instructional videos using video data and transcripts of audio data; coordinating the work of other annotators.

• Helping to refine the project’s annotation tools.

• Attending research team meetings.

• Contributing to analysis of the accuracy and efficiency of different neural networks in identifying instructional activities.

• Preparing for a data science competition in 2025; and

• Helping co-write manuscripts for publication.

Incumbents will be expected to: (a) develop/maintain a line of research associated with these two neural network studies and b) develop/maintain a line of independent research in a related field (such as teacher preparation, instructional quality, or instructional technology). Incumbents will also receive support and mentoring in ways to improve research skills, the preparation of grant proposals, and responsible research practices.

Project work begins the summer of 2023 and individuals are expected to begin work in the June/July timeframe. Work will go through August 2024 with the possibility of continuing for an additional 9 to 12 months (through May or August 2025).

The PI for this project is Peter Youngs, Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education. The co-PI is Scott Acton, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Minimum Requirement
Education: Doctoral degree in English education, mathematics education, instructional technology, teacher education, educational policy, data science, or a related field must be in hand by the start date of the position.

Preferred Requirements

• K-12 teaching experience

• Experience analyzing K-12 instructional videos

• Knowledge of/expertise in natural language processing, computer vision, data science, and/or learning analytics

• Outstanding interpersonal, written and verbal communication, and analytic skills

Physical Demands
This is primarily a sedentary job involving extensive use of desktop computers. The job does occasionally require traveling some distance to attend meetings, and programs.

Application Instructions: Please apply through Workday and complete an application online. Include the following documents:

• A CV/Resume

• A Cover Letter

• Contact information for 3 references (name, email, phone number)

All documents can be loaded into the resume submission field, multiple documents can be submitted into this one field. Internal applicants must apply through their UVA Workday profile. Incomplete applications will not be considered. For questions about the application process, please contact Margaret Weeks , Academic Recruiter. Before a formal offer of employment is extended, the selected candidate will undergo a background check per university policy.

COVID Vaccination Requirement and Guidelines

Please visit the UVA COVID-19 Job Requirements and Guidelines  webpage prior to applying for current information regarding vaccination requirements?and?guidelines for employment at UVA.

The University of Virginia, i ncluding the UVA Health System which represents the UVA Medical Center, Schools of Medicine and Nursing, UVA Physician’s Group and the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, are fundamentally committed to the diversity of our faculty and staff.  We believe diversity is excellence expressing itself through every person's perspectives and lived experiences.  We are equal opportunity and affirmative action employers. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, color, disability, gender identity or expression, marital status, national or ethnic origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, veteran status, and family medical or genetic information.