2-year Postdoc position in the Center for Computational Thinking and Design at Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University

Center for Computational Thinking and Design (cctd.au.dk), an interdisciplinary research center at Aarhus University, is offering a full time 2-year Postdoc position with start date on December 1, 2025 - or soon thereafter.

We are offering a position in Interaction Design for Educational Tools for Computational Thinking. This position addresses, in particular, complex and emerging digital technology areas such as cybersecurity and AI. Complex digital technologies such as advanced cryptographic techniques, machine learning, and mixed reality increasingly influence the lives of children. However, this influence often happens without their knowing and most often gives them very little chance to understand and shape how these digital technology areas influence their lives and society.

Computational Empowerment is concerned with how children and youth develop the skills and reflexivity to creatively construct, take advantage of, and understand digital technologies that are influencing their lives and society.

It is the ambition of the Center for Computational Thinking and Design to contribute knowledge about how to support progression, diversity and creativity around computational empowerment for emerging digital technology areas, and it is the role of the Postdoc candidate to contribute to the management of research projects in this area in collaboration with PhD students, student programmers, teachers, teacher educators, and educational technology providers. In addition, the candidate is expected to develop their own research, as well as take part in the activities in the research centre more broadly.

Qualifications and specific competences:

The ideal candidate has a PhD in computer science, human-computer interaction, or child-computer interaction and can construct IT-based research prototypes of educational toolkits.
In addition, the candidate has documented experience with research project managing, and with empirical, participatory, and/or research through design research methods, and finally has interest or experience in the areas of computational thinking and working with children at different age groups.

Application deadline: 

October 27th, 2025 at 23.59 (CET) 

Place of work: 

Dept. of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Åbogade 34, 8200 Aarhus N. 

Contact information:

For further information, please contact Professor Marianne Graves Petersen (mgraves@cs.au.dk)
 

Application procedure

Shortlisting is used. This means that after the deadline for applications – and with the assistance from the assessment committee chairman, and the appointment committee if necessary, – the head of department selects the candidates to be evaluated. All applicants will be notified whether or not their applications have been sent to an expert assessment committee for evaluation. The selected applicants will be informed about the composition of the committee, and each applicant is given the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that concerns him/her self. Once the recruitment process is completed a final letter of rejection is sent to the deselected applicants.

Letter of reference

If you want a referee to upload a letter of reference on your behalf, please state the referee’s contact information when you submit your application. We strongly recommend that you make an agreement with the person in question before you enter the referee’s contact information, and that you ensure that the referee has enough time to write the letter of reference before the application deadline. Unfortunately, it is not possible to ensure that letters of reference received after the application deadline will be taken into consideration.

If you wish to add a referee after you have submitted your application, you must send this person’s details (name, job title, place of work, and email address) as well as the name of the position you have applied for to: HR.Nattech@au.dk

Formalities and salary range

Natural Sciences refers to the Ministerial Order on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Danish Universities under the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.

The application must be in English and include a curriculum vitae, degree certificate, a complete list of publications, a statement of future research plans and information about research activities, teaching portfolio and verified information on previous teaching experience (if any). Guidelines for applicants can be found here.

Appointment shall be in accordance with the collective labour agreement between the Danish Ministry of Taxation and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations. Further information on qualification requirements and job content may be found in the Memorandum on Job Structure for Academic Staff at Danish Universities.

Salary depends on seniority as agreed between the Danish Ministry of Taxation and the Confederation of Professional Associations.

Aarhus University’s ambition is to be an attractive and inspiring workplace for all and to foster a culture in which each individual has opportunities to thrive, achieve and develop. We view equality and diversity as assets, and we welcome all applicants.

Research activities will be evaluated in relation to actual research time. Thus, we encourage applicants to specify periods of leave without research activities, in order to be able to subtract these periods from the span of the scientific career during the evaluation of scientific productivity.

Aarhus University offers a broad variety of services for international researchers and accompanying families, including relocation service and career counselling to expat partners. Read more here. Please find more information about entering and working in Denmark here.

Aarhus University also offers a Junior Researcher Development Programme targeted at career development for postdocs at AU. You can read more about it here.

At the Faculty of Natural Science at Aarhus University, we strive to support our scientific staff in their career development. We focus on competency development and career clarification and want to make your opportunities transparent. On our website, you can find information on all types of scientific positions, as well as the entry criteria we use when assessing candidates. You can also read more about how we can assist you in your career planning and development.

The application must be submitted via Aarhus University’s recruitment system, which can be accessed under the job advertisement on Aarhus University's website.
 

Aarhus University

Aarhus University is an academically diverse and research-intensive university with a strong commitment to high-quality research and education and the development of society nationally and globally. The university offers an inspiring research and teaching environment to its 38,000 students (FTEs) and 8,300 employees, and has an annual revenues of EUR 935 million. Learn more at www.international.au.dk/