"Postdoctoral Research Associate"

Full-time: 35 hours per week

Fixed-term: for 36 months

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:

*We’re unlocking Edinburgh’s potential. Join us.*

Here at the University of Edinburgh there’s a career for everyone. We can offer opportunities for you to develop in your career and make a real difference in the communities around us whilst contributing to the world at large. Our people come from a wide range of backgrounds, each bringing their abilities and experiences to our organisation.

The University of Edinburgh is a world-class organisation. We look for the best in the field across all disciplines and provide a working environment where academics can develop their careers and passion for their chosen subject area. We offer the full range of academic roles and have a genuine focus on our student’s performance and wellbeing.

The role:

The successful candidate will work alongside Dr Emily Sullivan as part of the ERC funded grant projectMachine 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 36 months, available from 1st of May 2026.

*If you are interested in this role, you may also be interested in our 24-month PDRA role working on the same project – reference number 13788.*

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