PhD Fellow in mathematical modelling - OsloMet

Your main duties and areas of responsibility

The project, “Not only bad news travel fast”, will explore how ideas, narratives, and opinions spread when people usually interact locally (with friends and colleagues) but occasionally experience large, nonlocal exposure shocks—for example through influencers, recommender systems, or viral posts.

Classic opinion-dynamics and culture-diffusion models typically assume short-range, diffusive interaction, while many recent works claimed that long-range jumps can radically change exploration, search efficiency, and spreading patterns on complex networks.The idea of the project is to ‘cross-breed’ long-range jumps with agent-based models to explore how opinions and news spread, enriched with social mechanisms such as cooperation, competition, and innovation. Our project will open a largely unexplored research field at the interface between optimal spreading strategies and opinion dynamics, with possible applications to infodemics, political polarization, and innovation spreading in modern society.

The position is advertised as a 3-year position with 100% research, or a 4-year position with 75% research and 25% other career-advancing work. The goal must be to complete the PhD program/degree within the decided time frame. The decision on a 3- or 4-year position will be discussed as part of the interviews in the hiring process.

As a PhD Fellow at OsloMet, you have the opportunity to apply for funding for extended research stays abroad.