Postdoctoral Research Associate

The University of Edinburgh - School of Philosophy

The Philosophy Department in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences is seeking a full time, fixed term Postdoctoral Research Associate. This post is available from May 2026.

The Opportunity:
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The role:

The successful candidate will work alongside Dr Emily Sullivan as part of the ERC funded grant project Machine Learning in Science and Society: A Dangerous Toy? (TOY). The PDRA will conduct original research in philosophy of science and the philosophy of machine learning. TOY aims to conceptualize and evaluate machine learning models across science and society as a type of toy model, bridging epistemic and ethical issues in simple computational models with contemporary complex machine learning models.

This post is full-time (35 hours per week), fixed-term post for 24 months, available from 1st of May 2026.

*If you are interested in this role, you may also be interested in our 36-month PDRA role working on the same project – reference number 13824.*

Informal enquiries may be made to the Dr Emily Sullivan, esulliv2@ed.ac.uk