Positions in Data Science at the Johns Hopkins Mathematical Institute for Data Science (MINDS)
Director- Mathematical Institute for Data Science (MINDS)
The Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University invites nominations and applications for the position of Director of the Mathematical Institute for Data Science (MINDS). The Director will be appointed as a full-time tenured faculty member in the Whiting School of Engineering and will be encouraged to remain active in research, with strategic leadership of the Institute as their top priority.
This is an outstanding opportunity for an accomplished scholar with leadership experience to further strengthen an exceptional interdisciplinary research institute at the nation’s first research university. The best candidates will embody the intellectual distinction, entrepreneurial capacity, collaborative spirit, transparency, inclusiveness, and creativity that characterize the School’s culture and will bring a scholarly record deserving appointment as tenured professor at The Johns Hopkins University.
MINDS: the Mathematical Institute for Data Science
MINDS is one of the Whiting School’s 25 Interdisciplinary Centers and Institutes. The Institute currently comprises over 40 tenure-line and research faculty, and their associated graduate students. MINDS faculty have primary appointments in the Whiting School of Engineering or in other closely related schools.
The institute brings together a multidisciplinary team of mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists, and engineers to develop the fundamental mathematical, statistical, and computational principles for the analysis and interpretation of massive amounts of complex high-dimensional data.
The institute also helps develop multidisciplinary educational programs on the foundations of data science, and foster interactions among data scientists through a series of collaborative research workshops and summer schools. MINDS faculty are actively engaged in many research programs and projects sponsored by NSF, DARPA, IARPA, ONR and ARO MURIs and many other agencies.
Opportunities for the Insititute Director
The MINDS Director will work with colleagues in and beyond MINDS to increase its impact by both enhancing its historic strengths and positioning it as a central element of a set of AI-related initiatives across the Whiting School and the University more broadly. To these ends, the Director will identify ways in which the Institute will continue to grow and evolve and through which it, the Whiting School, and Hopkins can recruit, sustain, and deploy the human and financial resources needed to further distinguish itself.
The Director will work to maintain the Institute’s position as the disciplinary and intellectual foundation of AI research within the University, enabling MINDS to contribute to and benefit from the success of significant institutional investment in data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning more broadly, including potential applications to key societal problems such as healthcare and scientific endeavors such as vision, linguistics, and neuroscience.
Collaborations with the Applied Physics Lab (www.jhuapl.edu) present opportunities to bring additional resources, expertise, and scale to advance MINDS research including potentially in classified research. Beyond Hopkins, MINDS’s Director will foster connections with industry as part of the Institute’s efforts to expand its base of resources and relationships, to disseminate knowledge and discoveries, and to develop and transfer technologies that may have an impact in the world. In these various external activities, the Director will work with the University’s technology ventures office (https://ventures.jhu.edu), with faculty and students, and with alumni and donors.
Specific strategies for enhancing MINDS’s strengths, broadening its impact, and positioning it relative to Hopkins-wide initiatives, along with measures of success and the prioritization of activities designed to achieve success, will be developed by the Director in collaboration with MINDS’s faculty and the Dean.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Whiting School
WSE has a stated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, which reads as follows: “Diversity and inclusion enrich our entire community and are critical to both educational excellence and to the advancement of knowledge. Discovery, creativity, and innovation flourish in an environment where the broadest range of experiences are shared, where all voices are heard and valued, and where individuals from different cultures and backgrounds can collaborate freely to understand and solve problems in entirely new ways.” As the leader of the Institute and within the School, MINDS’s Director will work to enhance and expand diversity and inclusion at all levels and will ensure that the Institute is a welcoming and supportive environment for all.
Position Qualifications
The new Director will be a proven, entrepreneurial leader who can bring faculty, staff, and students together to pursue a compelling vision of MINDS as an international hub for foundational work in the data science that underlies AI and as a site of innovation, teaching, and translation. They will have an exceptional track record in the mathematical foundations in Data Science and related fields. They will also possess strong skills for mentoring junior faculty and will promote the interests of the Institute. Intellectual curiosity and fundraising experience are valued. They will have a dossier that represents a distinguished track record of scholarship and teaching; a passionate commitment to research, discovery, and application; and an interest in and success at academic administration. Expected educational background and qualifications include:
- An earned doctorate in an area such as data science, mathematics or statistics, computer science, electrical and computer engineering, or a closely related field and a scholarly record deserving appointment as tenured professor at The Johns Hopkins University
- Recognized leadership in their respective field with a distinguished national and international reputation for research and education
- Excellent communication skills in both internal and external interactions
- Strong commitment to diversity and inclusion at all levels among faculty, students, and staff, along with measurable and sustained impact on the diversity and inclusiveness of organizations they have led or been part of
- Leadership and administrative experience within a complex research environment or in national/international organizations connected to their respective field
The Whiting School of Engineering and MINDS are committed to building a diverse educational environment, and women and minorities are strongly encouraged to apply. Johns Hopkins University is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, marital status, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, other legally protected characteristics or any other occupationally irrelevant criteria. The University promotes Affirmative Action for minorities, women, individuals who are disabled, and veterans. Johns Hopkins University is a drug-free, smoke-free workplace.
Applicants should submit their CV and a letter of interest outlining their research and leadership experience and their contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Review of credentials will begin promptly and will continue until the appointment is finalized. Every effort will be made to ensure candidate confidentiality.
The Whiting School of Engineering has engaged Opus Partners (www.opuspartners.net) to support the recruitment of the MINDS Director. Craig Smith, Partner, and Jeff Stafford, Senior Associate, are leading the search. Please send application materials, nominations, and inquiries to Jeffrey.stafford@opuspartners.net.
Faculty Positions
The Johns Hopkins University has several openings in machine learning and data science. Interested candidates should review current employment opportunities at the Johns Hopkins Applied Math & Statistics Department and the Johns Hopkins Computer Science Department.
Postdoctoral Fellow – Mathematical Institute for Data Science
The Johns Hopkins University’s Mathematical Institute for Data Science (MINDS) invites applicants for multiple positions as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Review of applications will begin on 1/1/2022. Candidates must have completed their Ph.D. prior to their appointment start date and show definite promise in research and teaching. The appointment is for one year, renewable for up to three years, with a typical duration of at least two years. Opportunities for collaboration include an NSF-Simons Collaboration on the Mathematical Foundations of Deep Learning (THEORINET), the NSF-TRIPODS Institute on the Foundations of Graph and Deep Learning, the DARPA GARD and DARPA RED programs, and ONR MURI on Control and Learning Enabled Verifiable Robust AI (CLEVR-AI), and an ARO MURI on Semantic Information for Multimodal Data.
The successful candidate will be expected to collaborate with Prof. Vidal on problems that include: 1. Foundations of deep learning: learning and control, convergence and implicit bias in overparametrized models, non-convex optimization. 2. Adversarial and lifelong learning: principled defenses for images and videos, reverse engineering of attacks, min-max optimization, lifelong unsupervised learning. 3. Computer vision: scene interpretation, action recognition, 4. Biomedical data science: video-based diagnosis of autism and Tourette syndrome, cell detection and reconstruction. A strong background in machine learning, optimization, statistics, dynamical systems, computer vision, or biomedical data science is required. Applicants are asked to submit (a) a cover letter (b) a curriculum vitae; (c) a description of current and past research (1-3 pages); (d) a plan for future research, and have at least three letters of recommendation. Please apply at http://apply.interfolio.com/98000
Applications received by November 15th, 2021 will be guaranteed full consideration; early application is advisable.
The Mathematical Institute for Data Science has 35 faculty affiliated with primary appointments in the Departments of Applied Math & Statistics, Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. MINDS faculty are supported by multiple grants, including an NSF-Simons Collaboration on the Mathematical Foundations of Deep Learning (THEORINET) and the NSF-TRIPODS Institute on the Foundations of Graph and Deep Learning. More information about the Mathematical Institute for Data Science can be found at https://www.minds.jhu.edu/.
The Whiting School of Engineering comprises over 200 full-time tenure-track, research, and teaching-track faculty in nine academic programs with a total annual research budget of over $100 million. Research partnerships with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Applied Physics Laboratory, Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences make the Whiting School of Engineering a unique research and educational environment. Student enrollment exceeds 1800 at the undergraduate level with over 1000 full-time MS and PhD students. The Engineering for Professionals program enrolls over 2000 part-time continuing education students and is the largest program of its kind in the country.
The Johns Hopkins University is committed to active recruitment of a diverse body of researchers. The University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer of women, minorities, protected veterans, and individuals with disabilities and encourages applications from these and other protected group members. Consistent with the University’s goals of achieving excellence in all areas, we will assess the comprehensive qualifications of each applicant.
MINDS 2022 Spring & Summer Fellowship Call
MINDS is calling for the submission of proposals for the 2022 Spring & Summer Data Science Fellowships to recognize and support outstanding graduate students working broadly in data science, and particularly in the foundations of deep learning and graph learning.
This award will support the selected fellows in one of three modalities: (i) support for the Spring semester of 2022, (ii) support for a research internship at MINDS over Summer 2022, or (iii) support for Spring + Summer 2022. The summer internship will have a higher stipend than the semester fellowship. Candidates are to specify which of the award modalities they wish to apply to, and their research proposal should be reflective of the duration of the type of award (see below).
Eligibility: Ph.D. students currently advised by MINDS faculty are eligible at all stages of their graduate studies. Applications will be reviewed by an awards committee for technical depth, potential impact of the research plan, and quality of presentation. Priority will be given to proposals addressing topics in the foundations of deep and graph learning, and to those including two or more MINDS faculty as advisers. Current MINDS fellows who wish to renovate their fellowships (based on their progress) are also encouraged to apply.
Submission details: Students are to submit a one page proposal for modality (i) and (ii), or a two-page proposal for modality (iii), as well as the candidate’s CV. Current MINDS Fellows should include a small section on their accomplished research progress in the last year. All material (compiled in a single pdf file) should be sent to the email address: minds.awards@jhu.edu by Dec 3th, 11:59 pm.