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Harvard Law School’s Program in Islamic Law is seeking a Data Science Fellow to work on various apps in the SHARIAsource Lab, a Harvard initiative designed to deploy data science tools on historical Islamic sources. The Fellow will be based at Harvard Law School, with opportunities to collaborate with various departments and partners—including the Harvard Libraries and the Library of Congress, SEAS and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and the Department of History and a community of scholars and students working on similar problems in DH.

Successful forays into this data science-driven approach to the study of legal history will require building a corpus of texts from open-source online repositories; creating tools to extract, code, and map data and metadata with GIS and other means; and building algorithms that help relate key people, places, and books to one another through researcher-created data sets and linked open data. The Fellow will work on multiple components of this project. The ideal candidate will have completed a program in computer science or a related field (with a BA, MA, or PhD), have at least 3 years of experience in DH or development, have a background in RTL languages and/or interest in Islamic studies, and would benefit from spending time working in a university setting on problems at the intersection of technology and academic research.

This is a one-year term appointment. The expected start date is summer 2023, with possibilities for extension based on performance and funding. The Fellow will work closely with the PI, Professor Intisar Rabb (Professor of Law & History; Director of the Program in Islamic Law and SHARIAsource Lab at Harvard).

Basic Qualifications:

· A degree in CS at the BA/BS, MA or PhD level or higher (OR a graduate degree – MA or PhD in Islamic studies) AND experience of at least 3 years in software development is required before the start date.

· Excellent programming and problem-solving skills, as well as a solid background in structured and unstructured database design, text analysis, and machine learning.

· The Fellow must be self-directed and able to innovatively apply relevant research methods to this use case.

Highly Preferred Qualifications:

· Knowledge of Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, or another relevant ME language

· Full-stack development experience: esp. knowledge of Ruby, React, Python, front-end and back-end development and design, structured and unstructured databases

TO APPLY: Applicants should submit: 1) a CV/resume, 2) an unofficial transcript of terminal degree, 3) a cover letter describing their experience with data science, 4) a 1-2 page document describing 3 representative projects, sites, or apps together with links to any online portfolio, sites, and/or data repositories on Github or elsewhere), and 5) names and contact information of 2 references. All applications should be submitted online. Application review will begin on March 31, 2023, and applications will continue to be accepted on a rolling basis until the position is filled. 

Contact Information: Program in Islamic Law ([email protected]).

Equal Opportunity Employer: We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions or any other characteristic protected by law.