Research Lab Manager Position

The SONIC research group and ATLAS laboratory at Northwestern University invite applications for a research lab manager to support lab directors Noshir Contractor (SONIC) and Leslie DeChurch (ATLAS) on administrative and operational aspects of their research portfolios.

The lab manager will be responsible for supporting a variety of lab operations, including reporting and compliance requirements, communication of findings through digital displays and online materials, and organization and updating of research materials and files. In addition, the lab manager will assist in training new lab members and other research related activities.

Responsibilities:
  • Preparation and submission of grant reports and other administrative documents needed for compliance.
  • Preparation of materials to promote our research on digital displays and lab websites.
  • Regularly update lab databases tracking publications, presentations, personnel, and other information needed for laboratory operations.
  • Oversee IRB procedures and maintain confidentiality of participant information; ensures compliance with institutional, state and federal regulatory policies, procedures, directives and mandates.
  • Miscellaneous laboratory management tasks such as ordering supplies and maintaining equipment.
Required Competencies:
  • Strong project management skills with exceptional attention to detail.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
  • Outstanding interpersonal skills and ability to maintain positive relationships with various stakeholders.
  • Strong time management skills with a proven ability to multitask and to prioritize activities to successfully complete projects on tight deadlines with little supervision.
  • Knowledge of Microsoft Office, Dropbox, and Google Drive required.
  • Willingness to learn scientific formatting requirements (e.g., APA format) in preparing research materials.
  • Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
Education and Experience:
  • Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in Communication, Psychology, Sociology, Business, Industrial Engineering, or a social science field.
  • Experience in an interdisciplinary research environment preferred.
  • Experience with IRB or grant-writing preferred.

Applicants should send a cover letter, resume, and references to Michael Schultz (michael.schultz@northwestern.edu).

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Multidimensional Understanding of Tie Strength

An article “The weakness of tie strength” in the current issue of Social Networks unpacked three elements related to the strength of ties: capacity, frequency, and redundancy. The case with an email network shows that the three elements are not highly correlated and are likely to reflect different dimensions of ties. This multidimensional view may explain some unexpected empirical findings. For example, Garg and Telang (forthcoming in Management Science) found that strong ties in online social networks play a significant role in job search and weak ties are ineffective. Weak ties may generate some job information, but only strong ties lead to actions such as referrals.

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Kyosuke Tanaka and Diego Gómez-Zará attend SICSS Chicago 2018

The SONIC Ph.D. students, Kyouske Tanaka and Diego Gómez-Zará, participated at the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science, in Chicago. The purpose of the Summer Institute was to bring together graduate students and early career researchers in both social science and data science. Content included live-streamed lectures from the main site at Duke University as well as guest speakers who presented on cutting-edge computational research and methods. Topics covered include text analysis, digital data collection, experimental design, non-probability sampling, agent-based modeling, and ethics.

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Noshir Contractor’s paper accepted at ASONAM 2018

Noshir Contractor co-authored a paper titled, “Generative Modeling of Human Behavior and Social Interactions Using Abductive Analysis”, with Yihui Ren, Vanessa Cedeno-Mieles, Zhihao Hu, Xinwei Deng, Abhjijin Adiga, Christopher Barrett, Saliya Ekanayake, Joshua Epstein, Brian Goode, Gizem Korkmaz, Christopher Kuhlman, Dustin Machi, Michael Macy, Madhav Marathe, Naren Ramakrishnan, Sekharipuram Ravi, Parang Saraf and Nathan Self.

The paper was accepted at EEE/ACM International Conference on Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2018), held in Barcelona, Spain.

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Noshir Contractor presents at ICA 2018

Noshir Contractor presents a paper (co-authored with Michael Schultz and Leslie DeChurch) titled “Communicating through space and over time” at ICA 2018, in Prague, Czech Republic.

 

Schultz, M., DeChurch, L., & Contractor, N. (2018, May). Communicating through space and over time. Paper to be presented at the 68th Annual ICA conference, “Voices,” Prague, Czech Republic.

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