AAA Data Science Postdoctoral researcher Data-driven decision support in complex markets

Faculty of Sciences (VU) & Economics and Business Administration (VU)

VU University Amsterdam is one of the leading institutions for higher education in Europe and aims to be inspiring, innovative, and committed to societal welfare. It compromises twelve faculties and has teaching facilities for 25.000 students.

The Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEWEB) aims to combine high quality education with excellent research. The Faculty offers three Dutch taught Bachelor’s programmes (Economics and Business Economics, Econometrics and Operations Research and Business Administration), one English taught Bachelor’s programme (International Business Administration), eight English taught Master’s programmes and thirteen postgraduate programmes. The faculty has several research groups with an outstanding international reputation. FEWEB accommodates approximately 4600 students and 1700 postgraduate students. Over 500 staff members are employed at the Faculty. 

Amsterdam Data Science, an initiative of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), VU University Amsterdam (VU), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA), and Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) is looking for 14 researchers at the postdoctoral/PhD level. These positions are funded by the Amsterdam Academic Alliance (AAA), a joint initiative of the UvA and VU aimed at intensifying collaboration with each other and knowledge institutions in the region, to cement Amsterdam's position as a hub of academic excellence. These positions are partially co-funded by CWI, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of the UvA, HvA, ORTEC, Spinoza fund of Prof. Vossen, and VUmc.

Amsterdam Data Science provides a network in which some 300 Amsterdam based scientists exchange Data Science knowledge and forge partnerships within and outside the academic community. This comprises the foundations of data science and data science for the life sciences, social analytics, business analytics, and digital humanities.

This advertisement concerns one of the 14 positions. This postdoctoral researcher position is with the Faculty of Sciences – VU University Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Center for Business Analytics – VU University Amsterdam. The Amsterdam Center for Business Analytics is a newly founded VU University institute that aims at developing, disseminating and exploiting business analytics and data science knowledge and applications by bringing together businesses and scientific research (www.acba.nl). ACBA is a joint initiative of the departments Information, Logistics & innovation (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration), Mathematics, and Computer Sciences (both Faculty of Sciences)). ACBA supports organizations to consider, design and undertake applied research studies concerning business analytics and closely collaborates with businesses as well as related research institutes like Amsterdam Data Science and ‘Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica’.

Project description

Consumer decision making shifts to mobile online settings in which prices have to be determined almost instantaneously. The interaction with large numbers of consumers requires new (big) data infrastructures and decision support models that not only facilitate existing business processes, but also fuels development of new business models. The research project aims to connect high performance distributed computing and revenue management/dynamic pricing in the context of data driven decision making and business model innovation. 

The research of the candidate addresses four closely-related questions in the design and operation of social commerce platforms: How do suppliers of products and services determine prices under different channels? How does data-driven decision making influence buyer behavior? What are the desirable policies that could optimize the performance of these platforms? How can advanced information and communication technologies facilitate the complex decision-making process in these platforms? 

On examining the opportunities and challenges brought by the emerging social commerce platforms, which can be considered as complex market environments, the candidate must be able to combine empirical and experimental methods in order to understand decision behaviour in these platforms and develop policy implications for the platform designers.

Requirements

Candidates who would like to apply must have the following requirements/skills:

• a PhD degree in either Computer Science (e.g., Data Mining, High-performance Computing), Economics/Business Administration (e.g., Applied Econometrics, Data-driven decision making, Quantitative Marketing, (online) Decision Behaviour), or Mathematics/Statistics (Revenue Management, Dynamic Pricing);
• strong quantitative skills and be able to collaborate with researchers from a diverse background such as computer science, economics/business administration, and mathematics/statistics. In addition, the candidate should have a keen interest in contributing to the intersection of the aforementioned fields;
• at least have a proven research track record in one of the following research domains:

      - data-driven decision behavior;
      - revenue management/ dynamic pricing;

      - high performance, distributed computing;

• a strong analytic thinking;
• the ability to work in group as well in carrying out individual work;
• flexible and communicative skills required to collaborate with industrial partner(s);
• a good knowledge of the English language;
• knowledge of statistical packages such as Matlab and R;
• preferably knowledge of high-level programming languages such as Java and Python;
• some experience in programming mobile systems (e.g., with Android) and networked systems is an added advantage.

Further information

For additional information, please contact: 

• Dr. Frans Feldberg
  T: +31 (0)20 5986059
• Working at VU

Appointment

The initial appointment will be for a period of three years. The postdoctoral researcher will have its primary workspace at the Amsterdam Center for Business Analytics. We offer excellent employment conditions such as: 

• remuneration of 8,3% end-of-year bonus and 8% holiday allowance;
• solid pension scheme (ABP);
• a minimum of 29 holidays in case of full-time employment;
• possibilities to save up holidays for sabbatical leave. 

The salary will be in accordance with university regulations for academic personnel, and depending on experience, range from a minimum of €2,476 gross per month up to a maximum of €3,908 gross per month (salary scale 10) based on a full-time employment. The Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities is applicable.

Job application

If you are interested in this position you are requested to send a motivation letter, two recommendation letters, a CV with your publications and your academic transcripts to Faculteit der Economische Wetenschappen en Bedrijfskunde; t.a.v. M. Maletic, directeur bedrijfsvoering, to vacature.feweb@vu.nl.

Please do not forget to mention vacancy number 15110 and the title of the position in the email header.

Applications will be accepted until 10 May 2015.

No agencies please