Position
Details
Title Postdoctoral Research Position in Data Science/ML for Assessing Societal Impacts of AI Data Centers School Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Department/Area Biostatistics Position Description
We invite applications for a full-time Postdoctoral Research Fellow to join a massive research effort aimed at assessing the environmental and health impacts of AI data centers. The position will be supervised by Professor Francesca Dominici and will focus on building and evaluating a decision framework to guide the expansion of AI data centers, aligning economic opportunity with social impact. Our team leverages data pipelines to quantify data centers electricity and water use, emissions, and air pollution exposure and health impacts. The overarching goal is to develop an interactive utility-facing geospatial toolkit through data science and partnerships with grid operators.
Duties and Responsibilities
? Develop a scalable data science pipeline to harmonize and link detailed information on type, size, location of data centers in the US, their electricity and water demand, carbon emissions; exposure to air pollution.
? Develop and/or apply methods for causal inference and machine learning to estimate the excess number of adverse health events and directly attributable to data centers
? Develop a decision-support platform that allows data center expansion while minimizing environmental exposures and associated health impacts.
? Lead and contribute to manuscripts for high-impact journals and conferences (e.g., Nature-like journals or top CS conferences).
? Present findings in internal meetings and at national/international conferences.
? Collaborate with an interdisciplinary team of biostatisticians, computer scientists, climate scientists and community and industry partners.
? Contribute to open-source code, reproducible research workflows, and, where possible, public tools or model artifacts.
Basic Qualifications
? PhD (completed or near completion) in one of the following or a closely related field:
? Demonstrated expertise in modern machine learning, including at least one of the following:
? Strong programming skills in Python and experience with PyTorch, required to have experience developing code with a team through collaborative version control
? Experience working with large datasets and cloud computing environments.
? Solid background in statistical modeling and inference
? Excellent written and oral communication skills, with a track record of peer-reviewed publications commensurate with career stage.
Additional Qualifications
Prior experience with one or more of:
? Health claims data, EHRs, or other large-scale health/administrative datasets
? Environmental, climate, or air pollution exposure data
? Causal inference methods
Familiarity with interdisciplinary work at the interface of computer science, climate, environment, and health.
Special Instructions
Please submit the following materials:
? Cover letter describing your research interests, relevant experience, and fit for this position.
? Curriculum vitae including a list of publications.
? One to three representative publications or preprints.
? Names and contact information for 23 references.
Contact Information
Catherine Adcock
Contact Email catherine_adcock@harvard.edu Salary Range
$75,000
Minimum Number of References Required 2 Maximum Number of References Allowed 3 Keywords
biostatistics; data science; machine learning; data centers
EEO/Non-Discrimination Commitment Statement
Harvard University is committed to equal opportunity and non-discrimination. We seek talent from all parts of society and the world, and we strive to ensure everyone at Harvard thrives. Our differences help our community advance Harvards academic purposes.
Harvard has an equal employment opportunity policy that outlines our commitment to prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, religion, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law or identified in the universitys non-discrimination policy. Harvards equal employment opportunity policy and non-discrimination policy help all community members participate fully in work and campus life free from harassment and discrimination.
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