Six open positions in the Access to Opportunities Project

We are hiring six research assistants to work with me on the Access to Opportunities Project, at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea). Applications will be open until the 12th of March 2020. More details can be found here (info in Portuguese only).



We are looking for driven candidates with good data analysis skills in R and interested in evaluating policy impacts on issues of transport accessibility and urban inequalities.

Please, help spread us the word!

Call for Applications: ITF Young Researcher of the Year Award

The International Transport Forum (ITF) at the OECD has opened a call for applications for the 2020 Young Researcher of the Year Award. The winner of the Award will be invited to present her/his work at the ITF Annual Summit.

"The principal aim of the International Transport Forum’s Young Researcher of the Year Award is to highlight the importance of transport research for sound transport policy formulation and implementation, and to foster closer links between transport policy and research. For 2020, the theme of the Summit is 'Transport Innovation for Sustainable Development'."

I was really honored to receive this award last year and it was a truly great experience. If you are eligible, I would highly recommend you apply for this award. The application is "open to researchers under 35 years of age at the time of closing of applications who have undertaken the research presented in the submitted paper in an institution, university or consultancy firm located in a member country of the ITF/OECD".

Fully funded PhD scholarship at the Transport Studies Unit at Oxford

Heads up: The Transport Studies Unit (TSU) at the School of Geography and the Environment of the University of Oxford will have one fully funded, three-year Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil/PhD) scholarship available for a citizen from a country in Africa, South and South-East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean or small island states in the Pacific or Indian Ocean. More details here.

I'm certainly biased here, but this is a great opportunity to study along brilliant researchers in an incredibly vibrant department at one of the top universities in the world. This is a competitive scholarship, sure, but this should not stop you from applying. You only need one spot. ;)

We're hiring research assistants to work with Spatial Data Science at Ipea

A few readers might be interested in this post. We are hiring 4 research assistants to work with (spatial) data science on urban, regional and environmental research and policies at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea), in Brasília. Great team with lots of computational resources, rich data sets and plenty of challenging data analyses to improve public policies.

*** All the positions are based in Brasília, Brazil.

 

Details here.

New Center for Demographic Science at Oxford

Oxford University has recently launched the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (they are also on Twitter). The center is led by Melinda Mills and it involves a team with several top researchers dedicated to seven interconnected research programmes:

1. Nowcasting: digital and computational demography

2. Environmental context, demography and climate change

3. Inequality and diversity

4. Sociogenomics: nature and nurture

5. Causal demography

6. Demography, society and global sustainability

7. Ethics, truth and trust

*** The other good news is that they are hiring Assistant Professors and Postdocs. The center also offers scholarships for Masters and PhD students.

TSU/Oxford is recruiting a Departmental Research Lecturer

The Transport Studies Unit (TSU) and the School of Geography and Environment are recruiting a Departmental Research Lecturer. This post is a full-time, 5-year departmental appointment, research intensive position (75% research). More details here.

TSU is a relatively small research group with some brilliant researchers in an incredibly vibrant department at one of the top universities in the world. This is a great opportunity and I would strongly encourage competitive candidates to apply. The closing date  is 29-Mar-2019.

Call for a research assistant in the Access to Opportunities Project at Ipea, Brazil

This is just a reminder that I am hiring a research assistant for the Access to Opportunities Project, at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea). The researcher will be based in Brasilia (Brazil). We are looking for someone with advanced skills in R. Applications will be open until the 20th of January 2019. More details can be found here (info in Portuguese only). Please, help spread us the word.

More info about the Access to Opportunities Project: The aim of the project is to estimate accessibility to employment opportunities as well as education and health services in the largest urban areas in Brazil. The project focuses on how social and spatial inequalities in access to opportunities relate to urban transportation, housing and land use policies. We are estimating accessibility by public transport, walking and cycling at a high spatial resolution for all of the Brazilian major cities. The project will generate a massive amount of data each year. My plan is to make the data outputs and results publicly available to policy makers and researchers, with whom we will be able to collaborate in the future to analzye particular case studies in Brazil but also to conduct comparative studies involving cities in Brazil and other countries.

Open position for a research assistant in the Access to Opportunities Project at Ipea, Brazil

This post will probably be of interest to only a small share of readers living in Brazil.

We have an open position for a research assistant to work with me in the Access to Opportunities Project at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea). The aim of the project is to estimate accessibility to employment opportunities as well as education and health services in the largest urban areas in Brazil. The project focuses on how social and spatial inequalities in access to opportunities relate to urban transportation, housing and land use policies. We are estimating accessibility by public transport, walking and cycling at a high spatial resolution for all of the Brazilian major cities, what will generate a massive amount of data each year. My plan is to make the data outputs and results publicly available to policy makers and researchers, with whom we will be able to collaborate in the future to analzye particular case studies in Brazil but also to conduct comparative studies involving cities in Brazil and other countries.

The research assistant will be based in Brasilia (Brazil) and we are looking for someone with advanced skills in R. Applications will be open until the 20th of January 2019. More details can be found here (info in Portuguese only). Please, help spread us the word.

Open position at TSU/Oxford for Research Associate in Urban Mobility

This post is just a quick reminder that the Transport Studies Unit (TSU) at Oxford University is recruiting a senior researcher to work on the PEAK Urban project. Ten days left to apply. Job Details here.

This is a really exciting project working with Tim Schwanen (Twitter) in an extremely supportive environment with great colleagues in an excellent research center. I would jump at this opportunity if I could.

TSU/Oxford is recruiting a Research Associate in Urban Mobility

The Transport Studies Unit (TSU / Oxford University) is recruiting a Research Associate in Urban Mobility to work on the PEAK Urban project. If you are interested on questions of transport accessibility, knowledge co-production*, transportation equity and everyday mobilities, you should take a closer look at the Job Details.

* participatory research in which local community members are involved as co-researchers.

This is a really exciting project working with Tim Schwanen (Twitter) in an extremely supportive environment with great colleagues in an excellent research center. I would jump at this opportunity if I could.

Two positions open at Oxford

Just a heads up to job seekers. There are currently two positions open at Oxford University. Perhaps some of you could be interested.

• Research Associate in Complex Systems Economic Modelling, at the Institute of New Economic Thinking. The researcher will participate in the ‘Sensitive Intervention Points in the Transition to the Post-Carbon Society” project.
  
• Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology and Social Demography (Critical Life Events), at the Department of Sociology. The researcher will work on the project 'Critical Life Events and the Dynamics of Inequality: Risk, Vulnerability, and Cumulative Disadvantage'.

cfp: special issue on informality in urban transport

Heads up. The Journal of Transport Geography has opened a call for papers for a special issue on "Concepts and methods on informality in urban transport across world regions".

Focus of the Special Issue:

The special issue intends to close the gap. Building on a set of original papers, it seeks to establish an account of the state-of-the-art of which concepts and methods are applied for what topics/aspects of informality in urban transport, an in-depth review of selected specific methods and their application in the field and the identification of their strengths and limitations, and the identification of lessons and directions for future research on the subject. The Symposium positions a set of overarching questions:

• How and how well do existing concepts and methods capture the phenomenon of informality in urban transport? What are they missing out? What is the promise of new /emerging technology in data gathering? What can be won by combining methods?
• What are the strengths and the limitations of approaches in specific case study contexts but also across cases and contexts?
• How can case study and experiential-based methodologies inform network-scale analyses in more conventional transport geography?
• What methods help to transfer knowledge from the research community across to policy making?

I saw this info on the new twitter account of the International Network for Transport and Accessibility in Low Income Communities, a research group recently created by Karen Lucas. You might wanna follow them.

Two open positions at TSU Oxford

Heads ups: there are currently two open positions at the Transport Studies Unit (TSU) at Oxford University:

• 18-month post-doc position in Innovations in Urban Mobility. The successful candidate will be working on projects on user practices and experiences of on-street charging technologies for electric vehicles and car sharing in UK cities in the context of ongoing socio-technical transitions to sustainable and ‘smart’ mobility.
  
  
• 5-year post as Departmental Research Lecturer in Transport Studies, the closing date for which is 31 January 2017.

Open Research position at the Transport Studies Unit, Oxford University

Please spread the word:

The Transport Studies Unit (TSU) and the School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford University are advertising a 5-year post of Research Lecturer in Transport Studies. Applications deadline: 30 January 2017. Full details can be found here.

As some of you will know, I am in my 4th year of my PhD at TSU, under the supervision of Tim Schwanen and David Banister. I have to say this has been a fantastic and humbling experience and I feel extremely privileged to be part of this institution, which I would highly recommend to prospective students and researchers. TSU is a relatively small research group with some extremely smart researchers in an incredibly vibrant department at one of the top universities in the world. 

ps. the city of Oxford is also lovely but the the weather is not exactly what you would find in Hawaii.

Postdoc position, LSE and Oxford - Urbanization in Developing Economies

Prof Henry G Overman (LSE) points out to this great opportunity of a Postdoc position to do research on Urbanization in Developing Economies in a joint programme between Serc/LSE and the University of Oxford.

A major joint research programme on urbanisation in developing economies, with particular reference to Africa, has been launched at Oxford's Department of Economics and LSE's Spatial Economics Research Centre with support from the World Bank. Professors Tony Venables, Paul Collier (Oxford) and Vernon Henderson (LSE) are seeking to recruit up to two postdoctoral research economists. This will involve conceptual and econometric work on the overall urbanisation process in developing countries and on the internal development of cities, in particular large African cities. There will be intensive use of satellite data (to classify land use), night lights data, demographic census data, DHS data, survey data, mapping and planning data. The programme offers outstanding opportunities to contribute to cutting edge research in the field, based in two of Europe's leading social science research and training institutions.

Research Vacancies, LSE and Oxford - Urbanization in Developing Economies

Henry Overman points out to some Research Vacancies on Urbanization in Developing Economies in a joint programme between Serc/LSE and Oxford University.

A major joint research programme on urbanisation in developing economies, with particular reference to Africa, has been launched at LSE's Spatial Economics Research Centre and Oxford's Department of Economics, with support from the World Bank. Profs.Vernon Henderson (LSE) Paul Collier and Tony Venables (Oxford) are recruiting a Research Manager, Research Economists and Assistants and GIS Data Specialists to work on the programme. The programme offers outstanding opportunities to contribute to cutting edge research in the field, based in two of Europe's leading social science research and training institutions.

80 MOOCs Getting Started in April

Open Culture points out to about 80 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) getting started in April. Here is their comprehensive list of MOOCs.

Some of the courses that caught my attention include:

• Evaluating Social Programs  – MIT on edX – April 1 (4 weeks)
• An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python  – Rice on Coursera – March 24 (9 weeks)
• The Data Scientist’s Toolbox  – Johns Hopkins University on Coursera – April 7 (4 weeks)
• Getting and Cleaning Data  – Johns Hopkins University on Coursera – April 7 (4 weeks)
• R Programming  – John Hopkins on Coursera – April 7 (4 weeks)
• Justice  – Harvard on edx – April 8 (12 weeks)
• Climate Change in Four Dimensions  – UCSD on Coursera – April 8 (10 weeks)
• Fairness and Nature: When Worlds Collide  – University of Leeds on FutureLearn – March 31 (2 weeks)
• An Introduction to Population Health  – University of Manchester on Coursera – April 14 (6 weeks)
• Modelling and Simulation using MATLAB® - Hochschule RheinMain on iversity – April 22
• Identity, Conflict, and Public Space  – Queen’s University Belfast on Futurelearn – April 28 (6 weeks)
• Algorithms: Design and Analysis, Part 1  – Stanford on Coursera – April 29 (6 weeks)
• Maps and the Geospatial Revolution  – Penn State on Coursera – April 30 (5 weeks)

Modeling Complex Systems for Public Policies Call for consultants

Spread the Words!

The Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) – a Brazilian think-tank linked to the government – is making a request for proposals for eight IDB consultants to contribute with chapters to a book on Complex Systems applied to Public Policies.

Here are the 8 topics:

1. Complexity methods in education
2. Complexity methods applied to transport planning
3. Complexity theory in applied policy worldwide
4. Cities as complex objects
5. Economy as a complex object
6. Society as a complex object
7. Methods and methodologies of complex systems’ modeling
8. Complex Systems: concepts, literature, possibilities and limitations

The deadline for submission of entries is April 15. Details below and here.

obs. I've worked at Ipea for more than 5 years and I know some of the people leading the project. I can tell it is awesome to work with them and this is a great opportunity to expand the impact of complexity studies to policy applications.

On one hand, the project aims at pushing forward the modeling frontier, its methodologies and applications for the case of Brazil. On the other hand, the project pursues actual improvement on the understanding of public policies’ mechanisms and effects, through complex systems’ tools and concepts.

The book encompasses five broad themes: (1) concepts and methods; (2) computational tools; (3) public policy phenomena as complex systems (specifically: society, economics, ecology and cities); (4) applied examples in the world and its emergence in Brazil; and (5) possibilities of prognosis, scenarios and policy-effect analysis using complex systems tools.

The consultant is expected to deliver a proposed extended summary, a preliminary version to be discussed in a seminar in Brazil (July-September 2014) and the final version of the chapter.

[image credit: ? ]

Book Outline: Complex Systems and Public Policy

Complex systems in the context of this project are defined as systems in which a number of agents interact in a complex, non-linear manner and behavior emerges from simple rules. Simulation approach of these systems from a public policy perspective represents modeling relationships among citizens, firms, and institutions, bounded by regulatory measures, and spatial, political, and budgetary constraints. In sum, working with Complex Systems and Public Policies means creating experimental computational environments where relevant characteristics are formally described, and from which insights for policy improvement can be easily and low-costly evaluated.

LIST OF CHAPTERS

PART I. Complexity: theory and methods
1. Complex systems: concepts, literature, possibilities and limitations
2. Methods and methodologies of complex systems’ modeling
3. Operating complex systems

PART II. Public policy objects and complex systems’ approach
4. Society as a complex object
5. Economy as a complex object
6. Cities as complex objects
7. Ecology as a complex object

PART III: Applied modeling of complex systems to public policies.
8. Complexity theory in applied policy worldwide
9. Applications for Brazil

PART IV: Applications: specific cases
10. Agent-based models applied to transport planning
11. Learning analytics and agent-based modeling in education
12. Evolutionary models for the analysis of the Legislative

PART V: Complex public policies
13. The relevance of multiple models, sectors, and scales for public policy analysis
14. Simulating: scenarios, prospection and impact analysis for public policy

Heads up

1. University Lectureship in Demography at Oxford
   
   
2. New prize on causality in statstistics education (via A Gelman)
   
   
3. Postdoc Fellowship for "Crime and the City" at Brown University
   
   
4. Current Job Fellowship vacancies at Oxford Brookes University
   
   
5. ESRC Studentships at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
   
   
6. The Job Market for New Sociologists (via Lisa Wade)

[image credit Neal]