Teaching Faculty in Data Science

University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Knoxville (TN); On-site; USD 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

The College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville invites applications for a nine-month, full-time on-campus Data Science teaching faculty position. This open-rank search will consider Teaching Assistant Professor, Teaching Associate Professor, or Teaching Professor.

Responsibilities include teaching a range of Data Science courses from introductory to graduate level, developing course materials, mentoring students, and contributing to program assessment

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Data Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science or a closely related quantitative field
• Demonstrated expertise in one or more of the data science teaching areas listed above
• Evidence of effective teaching at the university level or substantial practitioner experience with instructional or mentoring responsibilities
• Experience or ability to design and deliver courses in multiple formats: in person, online synchronous, online asynchronous, and hybrid
• Experience with technology-enhanced teaching and team-based instructional practices
• Commitment to applied, hands-on, workforce-oriented undergraduate education

Responsibilities

• Teach courses spanning introductory through graduate level in Data Science with lab-intensive, applied components
• Develop and regularly update course materials to reflect current tools, frameworks, and industry practice
• Collaborate with intercollegiate program faculty to design learning experiences that connect technical skills with ethical, policy, and real-world application context
• Advise and mentor students, including supervision of capstone projects and applied research
• Maintain an active applied scholarly or professional practice profile relevant to your specialization

Skills

Data Science

MLOps

Python

R

SQL

Teaching

Education

PhD in Data Science or related field

Tools

Git

GitHub

Jupyter

Job description

The College of Emerging andCollaborative Studies (CECS) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's (UTK) seeks a dynamic, collaborative, and innovative faculty memberto contribute to its existing and future programs in Data Science.

CECS has one position open in Data Science for a non-tenure track,nine-month, full-time appointment, on campus, beginning January 1,2027.

This is an open-rank search; appointment at the TeachingAssistant Professor, Teaching Associate Professor, or TeachingProfessor level will be commensurate with qualifications andexperience.

The selected candidate will be responsible for teaching andservice, with assignments made by the dean according to enrollmentdemands and scheduling.

Primary teaching responsibilities willinclude courses in Data Science spanning introductory throughgraduate-level offerings, as well as other new courses launched bythe College.

We are seeking a colleague who brings deep appliedexpertise in one or more data science domains and who shares ourcommitment to education that is hands-on, intercollegiate, andworkforce-relevant.

Candidates are expected to maintain ascholarship focused on practice and impact; traditional academicresearch is welcome but not required.

Expertise in the following teaching areas is expected:

Data Science

The College is especially interested incandidates whose primary strength lies in modern data engineeringand MLOps, including ETL/ELT pipeline development, workfloworchestration, containerization, cloud-based data engineering,CI/CD, experiment tracking, model deployment, and monitoring andobservability for data and models, as this is a current strategicpriority for the program. Beyond that focus, expertise is alsoexpected in: foundational data science concepts including datacollection, management, and exploration; data stewardship, ethics,and lifecycle management; data storage, warehousing, andgovernance; analytical methods including statistics, machinelearning, and optimization; advanced data analysis includingmultivariate regression, clustering, topic modeling, and timeseries analysis; data wrangling and preprocessing; visualanalytics; programming in Python and R; version control using Git,collaborative platforms such as GitHub, and reproducible computingenvironments such as Jupyter; database design and SQL; andcommunicating data science outcomes to technical and non-technicalaudiences.

The ideal candidate will bring the knowledge and skillsto teach courses such as Applied Cloud Computing for Data Science,Fundamentals of Data Engineering, Scalable Data Mining andAnalysis, Edge and IoT Data Science, and Spatial Data Science,should the program choose to offer them in the future.

Key Responsibilities

• Teach courses spanning introductory through graduate level inData Science, including lab-intensive and applied learningcomponents
• Develop and regularly update course materials to reflectcurrent tools, frameworks, and industry practice
• Collaborate with intercollegiate program faculty to designintegrative learning experiences that connect technical skills withethical, policy, and real-world application context
• Advise and mentor students, including supervision of capstoneprojects and applied research
• Maintain an active applied scholarly or professional practiceprofile relevant to your specialization; traditional academicresearch is welcome but not required
• Contribute to program assessment, continuous improvement, andaccreditation processes
• Participate in college governance, committees, and professionalcommunity engagement

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Data Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics,Computer Science or a closely related quantitative field
• Demonstrated expertise in one or more of the data scienceteaching areas listed above
• Evidence of effective teaching at the university level, orsubstantial practitioner experience with instructional or mentoringresponsibilities
• Experience or demonstrated ability in the design and deliveryof courses in multiple formats, including face-to-face, synchronousonline, asynchronous online, and hybrid modalities
• Experience with technology-enhanced teaching and team-basedinstructional practices
• Commitment to applied, hands-on, and workforce-orientedundergraduate education

Preferred Qualifications

• Significant professional experience in a relevant industry orapplied context (highly desirable)
• Relevant industry certifications, where applicable
• Record of applied scholarship: professional publications,conference presentations, tool or open-source software development,or practice-based projects
• Exp erience developing or delivering simulation-based,lab-intensive, or capstone learning experiences
• Demonstrated ability or interest in teaching acrossdisciplinary boundaries (e.g., data science and applied AI, or datascience and a domain application such as sport analytics or healthdata)
• Familiarity with curriculum development, program assessment, oraccreditation processes (e.g., ABET, SACSCOC)
• Experience mentoring students from diverse backgrounds intechnical fields

Faculty Rank Criteria

• T eaching Assistant Professor – Holds a Ph.D. (or will hold atthe time of appointment) in a related field with promise forexcellence in teaching and related responsibilities, evidenced byearly effectiveness and contributions.
• Teaching Associate Professor – Terminal degree with ademonstrated record of excellence in teaching and relatedresponsibilities, with a minimum of three years of full-timeteaching experience in a related field.
• Teaching Professor (Full) – Terminal degree with a sustained,consistent record of excellence and evidence of instructionalleadership (e.g., curriculum development, mentoring, pedagogicalinnovation) commensurate with senior rank.

Note

Applicants must be authorized to work in the UnitedStates. The college is unable to provide visa sponsorship for thisposition.

About the College

The College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies (CECS) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is at the forefront of changingthe future of higher education. It is a first-of-its-kind collegecreated to meet the needs of students seeking a customizable degreepath in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence and datascience that leads to rewarding careers upon graduation. CECSoffers timely, innovative, student-centric degrees, minors, andstackable certificates at both undergraduate and graduate levelthat address the future talent gap and exposes students to expertsand disciplines from across campus through cross-cuttingcurriculum. CECS utilizes strong industry partnerships to ensurestudents gain relevant skills and real-world experience, offeringfor-credit internships and multi-disciplinary projects. CECSemphasizes the cohort experience where students learn and interactwith fellow students from across campus and disciplines, givingthem the opportunity to learn from one another and work together tosolve real-world problems.

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville is the state's flagshipinstitution, a campus of choice for outstanding undergraduates, and a premier graduate institution. As a land-grant university, UTK iscommitted to excellence in learning, scholarship, and engagementwith society.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration foret employment and admission without regard to race, color, nationalorigin, religion, sex, pregnancy, marital status, sexualorientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability,genetic information, veteran status, and parental status, or anyother characteristic protected by federal or state law. Inaccordance with the requirements of Title VI of the Civil RightsAct of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans withDisabilities Act of 1990, the University of Tennessee affirmativelystates that it does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, ordisability in its education programs and activities, and thispolicy extends to employment by the university.

Requests for accommodation of a disability should be directed tothe ADA Coordinator at Equal Opportunity and Accessibility, 1840Melrose Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37996-3560, by email to [e-mail] , or by phone at 865-974-2498.

Inquiries and charges of violation of Title VI (race, color, andnational origin), Title IX (sex), Section 504 (disability), the ADA(disability), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (age),sexual orientation, or veteran status should be directed to theOffice of Investigation and Resolution, 216 Business IncubatorBuilding, E J. Chapman Drive, Knoxville, TN 37996-3560, by email to [e-mail], or by phone at 865-974-0717.