University of Alberta
Assistant, Associate or Full Professor, Artificial Intelligence & Indigeneity
Location: Work primarily takes place at North Campus Edmonton, Alberta.
Media and Technology Studies at the University of Alberta invites applications for a tenure-track or tenured position at the rank of Assistant, Associate or Full Professor in Artificial Intelligence & Indigeneity, with an anticipated starting date of July 1, 2024.
Position Summary
We welcome candidates with specialization in an area of Artificial Intelligence & Indigeneity that complements and broadens our current strengths in research and teaching. We particularly encourage candidates with research programs in areas such as Indigenous epistemologies, digital humanities, software studies and emergent media theories, with special emphasis on how these areas intersect with decolonization, artificial intelligence understood broadly, and Indigenous research and knowledge.
Diverse methodological and theoretical approaches as well as engagement with Indigenous knowledge systems, languages or methodologies are required. Demonstrated experience leading research and/or research creation projects at the intersection of AI and Indigenous research would be an asset. The successful candidate will support the Faculty of Arts in its efforts to decolonize and indigenize research and teaching. First Nations, Métis, and Inuit scholars are encouraged to apply, along with Indigenous scholars from any geographical region. Applicants should self-identify and are encouraged to demonstrate Indigenous community connections.
Successful candidates will be nominated for a Canada CIFAR Artificial Intelligence (CCAI) Chair by the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). Amii is one of three institutes named in the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy and represents more than 35 artificial intelligence (AI) & machine learning (ML) researchers at the U of A, as well as CCAI Chairs at post-secondary institutions across Western Canada. The CCAI Chair includes research funding for at least five years.
This position is part of a University of Alberta cluster hire in the areas of research strength that include health, energy and Indigenous initiatives in health and humanities, among others. The University of Alberta is world-renowned for its strength in AI; this cohort will bring together and foster the next generation of scientists leading the development of machine learning for societal benefit, fulfilling Amii’s mandate of AI for good and all.
Unit/Faculty Summary
Media and Technology Studies (MTS) is an interdisciplinary unit within the Faculty of Arts, with growing undergraduate programs in Media Studies; Science, Technology & Society; and Computer Game Design, as well as a graduate program in Digital Humanities and an MA in Communications and Technology. MTS offers a vibrant and supportive work environment for new and established academics, with outstanding support for research and teaching.
The Faculty of Arts is the oldest and most diverse faculty on campus and is one of the largest research and teaching centres in Western Canada (www.arts.ualberta.ca). Research programs with connections to Indigenous research across the Faculty include the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Indigenous Feminist Studies, the Institute for Prairie and Indigenous Archeology, the Intersections of Gender (IG) signature area, and the Canadian Literature Centre/Centre de littérature canadienne (CLC). The University is also home to the Faculty of Native Studies as well as the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society, the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Governance, and the Situated Knowledges, Indigenous Peoples and Place (SKIPP) signature area.
Working at the University of Alberta
The University of Alberta (www.ualberta.ca) is situated in the centre of Edmonton on Amiskwaciy/Beaver Hills in Treaty 6 territory, also the traditional meeting ground and home for many Indigenous Peoples, including the Cree, Saulteaux, Blackfoot, Dene, Métis, and Nakota Sioux.
The main campus of the University of Alberta is located in Alberta’s capital, the City of Edmonton, Edmonton is home to Canada’s second-largest urban Indigenous population, with over 76,000 residents who identify as First Nations, Inuit, or Métis. It has the second largest Indigenous population and the fourth largest Black population of any Canadian city. Nearly 10% of Edmonton’s population is of South Asian origin and 16% of East and Southeast Asian origin, with growing numbers of Edmontonians of Filipino, Latin American and Middle Eastern origins. The Edmonton public school system offers bilingual education for children in French, German, Hebrew, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), and American Sign Language. amiskwaciy Academy offers Cree as a high school credit and has started an Aboriginal study course in junior high school.
Those of us who are neither Cree, Saulteaux, Blackfoot, Dene, Métis, or Nakota Sioux can only applaud, if as non-indigenes we cannot ourselves take part in, the effort to decolonize and indigenize research and teaching, and trust that the successful candidate will excel in Situated Knowledges and Comparative Indigenous Feminist Studies.
Wellington says
Indigenous epistemologies? Indigeneity? Digital humanities? Emergent media theories?
Indicative of what has happened to a once great pursuit in Western nations, i.e., higher education (and only in Western nations because no other civilization is bent upon civilizational suicide), but which has now degenerated into absurdity, groveling and indoctrination.
Patricia Chen says
My favorite is “situated knowledges.” What BS.
Road runner says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXob1BvrseI
Must watch vid by Fareed Zakaria about all this cr*p.
DEI has only produced babbling crybabies who do not belong in Academe, because they aren’t good enough, because they aren’t selected on excellence, but on race, or some other ‘indication’ (weirdo such, weirdo so), and show it in debates by shouting down their opponents, without offering any valid counterarguments. If you think ‘indigeneity’ will be different, pfffff…. What a joke! Drain the academic swamp!
Pebbles says
I signed up for Saulteaux 101 this summer.
Tkapshan says
Shouldn’t IA be picking the candidate (and nominating itself)? How hard can it be to string together such meaningless gobbledygook?
OLD GUY says
Just creating more positions that pay good salaries and produce nothing of value to mankind.
tunde says
Holy crap