Call for applications

What

We are seeking a young researcher for a renewable 1-year Research Fellow position ("Assegno di Ricerca") within the project "Evidence-based Climate Risk and Environmental Management" (CRIMA), funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

This project is a collaboration between the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, the research institute Eurac Research, and the company Ontopic, all based in Bolzano, Italy.

The CRIMA project aims to develop an ontology-based decision support system that integrates information from scientific literature with quantitative data to support analyses related to climate risk mitigation and adaptation, combining the flexibility of ontology conceptualization to represent risk knowledge with the capabilities of Earth Observation (EO) data management systems.

The primary objective of the collaboration is to implement a solution based on Virtual Knowledge Graphs (VKGs) suitable for openEO's computational paradigm based on process graphs. This solution will support high-level user queries expressed in structured form and according to a domain ontology, efficiently executing these queries in openEO and complementary data sources. To this end, a new mapping language will need to be defined to relate the concepts of the ontology in the user query back to the raster data and process graphs in OpenEO. Based on it, algorithms for rewriting user queries will then be extended to generate and orchestrate process graphs and native queries that can be evaluated by OpenEO and other SQL-interfaced sources, including RDBMS and the various SQL adapter/connector sources. These algorithms will be implemented and publicly released as an extension of the open source VKG system Ontop.

The expected outcome of these activities is the publication of results in leading scientific journals and conferences in the field.

Who

The ideal candidate should have a background in areas related to Semantic Web and/or Raster Data. A BsC in Computer Science or related fields (e.g., Engineering or Physics) is required. Proficiency in Java programming is highly appreciated. More details on the evaluation criteria will be available in the call once published.

When and Salary

This is a full-time position for 12 months, renewable. Starting date can be negotiated, but it'd better be no later than April 1st, 2024. The overall gross salary is €25647.00 per year, including social security contributions; this corresponds to, indicatively, a net retribution of 1850 euro per month. Each research fellow at UNIBZ has access to the canteen facilities, with a daily 4 Euro discount on meals.

Where

The successful candidate will work under the supervision of Dr. Davide Lanti, member of the In2Data group at the Faculty of Engineering. Life quality in Bolzano is constantly among the highest in Italy, and placed in the heart of the Dolomites (for those who love mountains). We can consider the possibility of working partially from remote, however the workplace ("sede di lavoro") must formally be Bolzano.

How to Apply

The call is officially out at this LINK. The deadline for applications is 17.12.2024 at 12:00 PM (noon).

If you are interested in this position and you are willing to have more information, please send an email to Davide Lanti.