Web Developer, Philadelphia

Web Application Developer

Degree of employment: Part-time though hours/week can vary throughout the year and can be negotiated around an academic calendar or other needs (Approximately 20 hours/week)

Starting date: as soon as possible, preferably Feb 2019

Duration: One year

Location: Seeking someone in the NY/NJ/Philadephia area.

Compensation: Competitive for the required skill set

Application deadline: February 1, 2019

We are looking for someone to join the team for Portraits of Unbelonging (https://eikones.philhist.unibas.ch/en/persons/zeynep-guersel/projects/),

specifically to help build a research tool for the project using knora (http://www.knora.org).

This is a collaboration with DaSCH (http://dasch.swiss/) in Basel, Switzerland so the initial work will be done remotely with regular check-ins via Skype. However, in August Dr. Gürsel, the principal investigator, will move to Rutgers Unviersity, New Brunswick and part of the role of the web application developer will be to help ensure a smooth transition and get the project up and running in the US.

Hence, ongoing support through 2019 will be important.

DaSCH Overview

The data and service center for the humanities (http://dasch.swiss/) is a Swiss national infrastructure for technology-based research in arts and humanities. Knora (http://www.knora.org), their web-based virtual research environment, allows researchers in the humanities to work collaboratively with different types of primary and secondary source material, and at the same time to preserve their research data and make it accessible so it can be cited and reused.

Your Position

Are you interested in working with visual data? Are you interested in working with an anthropologist researching a very early example of photography being used to police borders? This project involves building a tool to help navigate the extensive information Dr. Gürsel has amassed about a set of historical state photographs and the individuals in them. We are looking for someone who will help the database team build the researcher interface of the database and figure out how all the data collected can be migrated into Knora. (http://www.knora.org).

You will be building database components with the help of the DaSCH staff and eventually making this research available to other scholars in a controlled environment. The data to be incorporated is from images and text files but includes a significant amount of metadata. Much of the data is already in excel spreadsheets. You will be responsible for creating a method of organizing and visualizing the data, working in close collaboration with the DaSCH team and Prof. Gürsel. At present, we are only building a research tool for the team not a public-facing interface online.

Ideally we are looking for an interlocutor who not only has data and programming expertise but who is intrigued by the opportunity to help a humanities scholar see patterns in the data that can guide the next phase of the research. We are seeking someone curious, patient, extremely detail oriented, able to explain technical details in non-technical language, self-motivated and enthusiastic about thinking together about how to research images and connect them to non-visual data. It will be critical that you understand Prof. Gürsel's working methods to help design the database to her research questions. Does the thought of working with data across three calendrical systems, two alphabets, and four languages excite you? If so you may be just the person we're looking for. Familiarity with Armenian language, especially Armenian names would be fantastic but is not necessary.

Your profile

-- You have a solid background in computer programming and web application, and familiarity with RESTful APIs (JSON).

-- You enjoy working with people from different academic disciplines, learning new technologies, and imagining new ways of using them.

We offer you

You will work as part of a small, creative team of people with a mixture of technical and humanities backgrounds. The salary is competitive for the required skillset. We encourage experimenting with new ideas, we offer a friendly working environment, and we have a sense of humour.

Application/contact

Please send your application documents (letter of motivation, curriculum vitae, relevant certificates) in a single PDF file to Prof. Zeynep Gürsel, zg134@anthropology.rutgers.edu. She would also be glad to answer any questions you have about the position.

The DaSCH is an equal opportunity and family friendly employer committed to excellence through diversity. Applications from women and from people with a migration background are strongly encouraged.