Research Assistant (Temporary) – Institutional Design

Type: Part-time (15 – 20 hours per week)
Salaried/Hourly: Hourly
Program/Department: Future of Capitalism
Location: Remote

About the Berggruen Institute
The Berggruen Institute was established in 2010 to develop new ideas about how to reshape political and social institutions in the face of great transformations the world now faces. Our goal is to work across cultures, disciplines, and political boundaries and engage great thinkers in developing and promoting long-term answers to the biggest challenges of the 21st Century. No one person can accomplish this goal alone. It takes a team —people with different backgrounds, technical knowledge, and skillsets.

Our Values:

Pursue excellence.
Cultivate future-oriented solutions.
Inquire with an open mind.
Build a collaborative environment.
Invest in people and relationships.
Respect the human dignity of all.

 

The Berggruen Institute Future of Capitalism (FCAP) Program is seeking a limited-term research assistant to support a new project focused on the design and study of national investment institutions including public banks, asset managers, and industrial policy planning bodies. The research assistant will focus on institutional design and legal research. This position will report directly to the Associate Director of the program and a Senior Fellow from another institution.

This is a six-month assignment, working 15 – 20 hours per week, with an opportunity to extend based on the needs of the project. This position will be able to work remotely full-time.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct research related to:

• The legal architecture of new public institutions
• Procedures of institutional governance and design
• Developing a framework for evaluating multiple stakeholder claims in the course of industrial and investment policy decisions
• Comparative and historical industrial and public investment policies

• Coordinate research conferences and seminars with outside researchers and senior fellows.
• Other duties as assigned.

 
Requirements:

• A background in political science, history, legal studies, sociology, or related fields
• An MA and/or JD with applied policy research experience
• Recent Ph.D. or equivalent or advanced Ph.D. or equivalent student preferred
• General knowledge of literature on industrial policy and public investment
• A self-starter who is able to multi-task, take initiative, conduct independent research, and problem-solve

 
Submit your resume and cover letter to careers@berggruen.org and include in the subject line “Research Assistant – Institutional Design.” No phone calls, please.

Berggruen Institute is a proud equal opportunities workplace. We firmly believe employing a diverse workforce is important regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Berggruen Institute is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. 

composed by Arswain
machine learning consultation by Anna Tskhovrebov
commissioned by the Berggruen Institute
premiered at the Bradbury Building
downtown Los Angeles
april 22, 2022

Human perception of what sounds “beautiful” is necessarily biased and exclusive. If we are to truly expand our hearing apparatus, and thus our notion of beauty, we must not only shed preconceived sonic associations but also invite creative participation from beings non-human and non-living. We must also begin to cede creative control away from ourselves and toward such beings by encouraging them to exercise their own standards of beauty and collaborate with each other.

Movement I: Alarm Call
‘Alarm Call’ is a long-form composition and sound collage that juxtaposes, combines, and manipulates alarm calls from various human, non-human, and non-living beings. Evolutionary biologists understand the alarm call to be an altruistic behavior between species, who, by warning others of danger, place themselves by instinct in a broader system of belonging. The piece poses the question: how might we hear better to broaden and enhance our sense of belonging in the universe? Might we behave more altruistically if we better heed the calls of – and call out to – non-human beings?

Using granular synthesis, biofeedback, and algorithmic modulation, I fold the human alarm call – the siren – into non-human alarm calls, generating novel “inter-being” sonic collaborations with increasing sophistication and complexity. 

Movement II: A.I.-Truism
A synthesizer piece co-written with an AI in the style of Vangelis’s Blade Runner score, to pay homage to the space of the Bradbury Building.

Movement III: Alarmism
A machine learning model “learns” A.I.Truism and recreates Alarm Call, generating an original fusion of the two.

Movement IV: A.I. Call
A machine learning model “learns” Alarm Call and recreates A.I.Truism, generating an original fusion of the two.

RAVE (IRCAM 2021) https://github.com/acids-ircam/RAVE