Research Fellow in Ethical and Social Challenges

at  Kings College London

Job id: 105369. Salary: £52,874 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance.
Posted: 24 January 2025. Closing date: 02 February 2025.
Business unit: The Dickson Poon School of Law. Department: Law School.
Contact details: Sylvie Delacroix. sylvie.delacroix@kcl.ac.uk
Location: Strand Campus. Category: Research.
About us
The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London is one of the oldest law schools in England and recognised globally as one of the best law schools in the world.* The School was established in 1831 and has played an integral role in the life of King’s since the university was formed almost 200 years ago.
King’s has been in service to society since its foundation and we’re proud to continue that tradition to this day. Our research and teaching address some of the most pressing questions of our time relating to equality and human rights, the legal implications of climate change, globalisation, international relations, trade, competition and global finance, to name but a few. Members of The Dickson Poon School of Law advise governments, serve on commissions and public bodies and are seconded to national and international organisations, helping to shape policy and practice nationally and internationally.
About the role
This full-time post relates to funding received from the University of Tohoku. The Postdoctoral Research Associate will work full-time over 36 months.
The research will investigate the ethical and social challenges associated with Large Language Models deployed in morally loaded contexts (such as healthcare, justice and education). Among these challenges, the communication of uncertainty is of particular interest.
The project will be hosted by and managed at the Centre for Data Futures, part of the Dickson Poon School of Law (King’s College London), in collaboration with the Centre for Language AI Research (Tohoku University, led by Professor Jun Suzuki). This project requires the Research Fellow to travel once a year to Tohoku University’s Centre for Language AI research (for a minimum of 2 weeks).
The Research Fellow will be managed by Prof. Sylvie Delacroix at King’s College London.
You should hold a PhD in Philosophy or Computer Science and have a track record of conducting and leading research at the intersection between computer science and social sciences /humanities at high standards and delivering presentations at academic conferences.
This is a full time time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered an fixed term contract for 3 years from 1 September 2025.
About you
To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:
Essential criteria
1. PhD awarded in Philosophy or Computer Science
2. Specialist knowledge in a relevant area(s) and Demonstrated ability to engage with relevant computer science literature
3. Proven experience in leading research as demonstrated through a range of published results of research in peer reviewed journals or books and obtaining research funding for their work
4. Good interpersonal skills, able to work on own initiative or to lead a team
5. A keen interest and ability to work with computer scientists and organize and lead cross-disciplinary research and workshops
6. Wishes to develop sole-authored and/or co-authored publications in the areas of Ethics and social implications of large language models
Further Information
We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.
We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King’s.
We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.
To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘ How we Recruit’ pages.
We are unable to offer sponsorship for candidates who do not currently possess the right to work in the UK

Please refer the Job description for details