Part-Time Research Assistant: Democracy & AI Speech

UOM University of Melbourne; Parkville; On-site; AUD 16,000 - 17,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

17% superannuation

Professional development opportunities

Flexible work arrangements

Job summary

The University of Melbourne invites applications for a part-time 0.20 FTE, fixed-term 12-month role to support an ARC DECRA project analysing illiberal political speech. You will benchmark Large Language Model classifications against your own coding and gain valuable computational research experience.

Join a leading political science research team, contribute to high-impact scholarship, and develop rigorous empirical methods in a supportive environment.

Qualifications

• Developing expertise in political science or a closely related discipline with research experience.
• Experience in quantitative or qualitative research methods.
• Strong written and spoken communication; collaborative teamwork.
• Ability to organise tasks and manage deadlines while coding.
• Interest in computational social science, political communication or democratic backsliding; basic coding skills.

Responsibilities

• Score political speeches using a detailed codebook to validate and benchmark Large Language Model outputs.
• Coordinate tasks and timelines with the research team to meet deadlines.
• Track working time across assignments and contribute to project reporting.
• Participate in research team meetings, discuss coding challenges and model performance.
• Complete required University training and undertake other project tasks as directed by the research leads.

Skills

Research experience

Quantitative methods

Qualitative methods

Communication

Time management

Education

Political science degree

Tools

R

Python

Job description

The University of Melbourne invites applications for a part-time 0.20 FTE, fixed-term 12-month role to support an ARC DECRA project analysing illiberal political speech. You will benchmark Large Language Model classifications against your own coding and gain valuable computational research experience.

Join a leading political science research team, contribute to high-impact scholarship, and develop rigorous empirical methods in a supportive environment.