Health vacancies
PhD Position: Safety and Quality Control of Algorithmic Systems in Clinical Decision Making
Delft University of Technology
While medical hospitals have advanced quality and safety controls and assessments for technological tools, these cannot be straightforwardly applied to algorithmic decision systems, due to the complex nature of how these integrate in a clinical treatment or research context. This means emergent safety risks are not yet understood nor appropriately anticipated, and challenges emerge around assigning responsibility to developers versus (quality) management versus clinical personnel. In addition, new regulatory requirements will emerge to ensure effective human oversight. This PhD project will research current quality and safety control practices in academic hospitals, map emergent risks of ADS applications, identify emergent regulatory requirements, and draw lessons from the history of system safety and systems engineering to propose effective paradigms for ensuring quality and safety of ADS in clinical contexts, and to inform regulatory initiatives.
Profile of the candidate
The candidate for this position has a (research) master degree in medicine, engineering, safety science or public administration. The ideal candidate will likely not have a formal background in all the above topics but ideally has a strong affinity and willingness to work in a team of people from diverse disciplines and to quickly learn and attain new research skills outside of their current training.
Furthermore you have:
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Proven academic interest in questions regarding algorithmic applications and digital society;
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Interest in working in a very interdisciplinary, cross-university environment;
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Interest in contributing to and helping to create the broader algosoc research community;
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An excellent written and spoken command of English (written and spoken command of other languages, including Dutch, French, and/or German is a plus);
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Affinity with organising workshops, lecture series, and similar events.
If the vacancy appeals to you, but you are doubting whether you might be THE person we are looking for, please do apply. We encourage all qualified applicants, including minorities, women, people with disabilities, and members of other groups underrepresented in academia to apply. We wish to create a consortium that consists of persons who each contribute in their unique way to the team. Complementarity and not homogeneity is what we are looking for.
Developing a societal vision on automated decision making concerns us all. We believe that a diversity of perspectives in our consortium will be important in developing an inclusive societal vision and strive therefore also in our hiring policy for encouraging applicants from diverse backgrounds. We are committed to creating an environment of mutual respect, inclusiveness, equal opportunities with room for situated experiences, diverse perspectives, and ideas to flourish. This commitment applies to our research, organisation, room for flexibility, training, and community activities as well as our hiring strategy.