Dr. Tim Cavnar is the Postdoctoral Program Manager for MIDAS. A linguist by training, he completed his PhD in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He has more than a decade of experience working in higher education in widely varied instructional, administrative, and leadership roles. He provides programmatic support for an average of 40 postdocs across the four MIDAS postdoctoral programs:
- The Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship
- The Schmidt AI in Science African Faculty Fellowship
- The Michigan Data Science Postdoctoral Fellowship
- The MIDAS Postdoctoral Affiliates program
Tim’s work with MIDAS runs the gamut from foundational administrative processes (e.g. managing recruitment and hiring) to coordinating postdoc-facing events to fostering cross-campus collaboration. He also facilitates weekly MIDAS Career Advancement Workshops: a combination of industry-relevant career training and faculty coffee chats for MIDAS postdocs on the academic job market.
When he’s not supporting early- and mid-career AI-for-science researchers, Tim enjoys spending time with his wife, son, and cats.