PhD position on fairness of NLP-supported clinical decision-making process
in healthcare

We are hiring a Ph.D. student who will join the Human Data Science
<https://hds.sites.uu.nl/> and NLP <https://nlp.sites.uu.nl/> groups of the
Methodology and Statistics department of Utrecht University. Please visit
the vacancy at:
https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/working-at-utrecht-university/jobs/phd-on-fairness-of-nlp-supported-clinical-decision-making-process-in-healthcare-10-fte


*Project description*

Text mining and Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems are proving very
useful for clinical care and research. Several decisions on patient
inclusion/exclusion and coding of key study variables in clinical studies
are taken out of the hands of clinicians and put into the care of NLP
systems. However, clinical care is not always equitable; for example, women
present very different stroke symptoms from men, leading to underdiagnosis
and undertreatment of female stroke victims. These inequities are
inevitably encoded in the electronic health records (EHR) corpora mined by
clinical data scientists.

*The aim of this project *is to study the extent to which existing
healthcare inequities are propagated by the application of text mining/NLP
to EHR records and to develop methods to assess and reduce the impact of
the encoded inequities.

This project is part of the Gravitation programme Public Values in the
Algorithmic Society
<https://www.nwo.nl/en/researchprogrammes/gravitation>(ALGOSOC).
The Gravitation programme is an initiative by the Dutch government to
support excellent research in the Netherlands. The funding is reserved for
scientific consortia that have the potential to rank among the world's best
in their field. ALGOSOC is a response to the urgent need for an informed
societal perspective on automated decision-making. Funded by the ministry
for Education, Culture and Science for a period for 10 years, research in
the ALGOSOC programme will develop a deep understanding of the systemic
changes that  automated decision making entails for core public
institutions, for society, and for how public values are realized. The
research will focus on three sectors: justice, health and media. The
programme brings together researchers in law, communication science,
computer science, media studies, philosophy, public governance, STS,
economy and social sciences from five Dutch universities (Amsterdam,
Utrecht, Tilburg, Delft and Rotterdam). Together, the ALGOSOC community
will develop solutions for the design of governance frameworks needed to
complement technology-driven initiatives in the algorithmic society.

*What are you going to do*

*Tasks and responsibilities*

   - Develop, conduct, and publish research on the field of clinical NLP
   and data science;
   - Active participation in the research teams of the UU M&S department
   <https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/methodology-and-statistics> and
   especially in the groups of Human Data Science <https://hds.sites.uu.nl/>
    and NLP <https://nlp.sites.uu.nl/>;
   - Contribute to the public debate and organise outreach activities
   of ALGOSOC;
   - Contribute to the overall program in terms of events, research
   meetings, activities;
   - Collaborate with other researchers within the ALGOSOC consortium;
   - Help co-supervising research projects of students working on related
   topics.


*What do we require*

   - A Master degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Computational
   Linguistics, or a related field with interest in medical applications,
   *or*;
   - A Master degree in technical medicine or similar and experience in NLP;
   - A background in machine learning and deep learning is a plus;
   - Strong programming skills;
   - An excellent written and spoken command of English, as demonstrated by
   publications in English-language journals (written and spoken command of
   other languages, including French, German and/or Dutch is a plus);
   - The ability, willingness, and commitment to do both autonomous and
   team work;
   - Experience with organising workshops, lecture series, and similar
   events;

*Our offer*

The vacancy is for 1.0 FTE for 4 years. The appointment is initially for
one year, starting in 2023, with a possibility of extension after a
positive evaluation. The appointment should lead to the completion of a
dissertation within four years. The salary ranges full-time from €2,541 to
€3,247 gross per month (salary scale P, in accordance with the CAO Dutch
Universities). The salary is supplemented with an annual vacation allowance
of 8% and a year-end bonus of 8.3%.

*Questions*

Do you have any questions or do you require additional information? Please
contact:
• Dr. Anastasia Giachanou ([email protected]), Assistant Professor

*Job application*

If you feel the profile fits you, and you are interested in the job, we
look forward to receiving your application. You can apply online on the
university’s vacancy page:
https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/working-at-utrecht-university/jobs/phd-on-fairness-of-nlp-supported-clinical-decision-making-process-in-healthcare-10-fte


We will accept applications until *16 January 2023*

For information on other vacancies of ALGOSOC project, go to
https://www.algosocvacancies.org/  <https://www.algosocvacancies.org/>

Best regards,
Anastasia Giachanou
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