Tenure Track Associate Professor in Materials and Interaction Design

The section of Materializing Futures within the department of Sustainable Design Engineering (SDE) in the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering aims at developing theories, tools, and methods to support the design process in understanding and designing with emerging material and fabrication technologies in the interest of the planet and society. Our research activities are organized under three related knowledge domains: Materials, Fabrication, and Computational Design.

Over the last years, our section has turned its attention to alive, responsive, and adaptive materials. From shape-changing magnetic materials to 3d printed metamaterials, from living photosynthetic materials to stretchable textile sensors, we explore the potentials of novel and emerging materials for design and society.

To facilitate their seamless integration in our everyday life, we need to re-evaluate how we understand the reaction times and manners in such materials and the modes of interaction. Thus, as materials we deal with become active, adaptive, autonomous, it is our ambition to develop an understanding of human-material interaction and have a stronger position within Human Computer Interaction communities.

How should HCI and design researchers work with such materials? What new skills and competencies do they need? What type of novel tools and techniques do we need to develop to better understand and convey such materials to future designers and the public?

Within our section we advocate a unique research approach, which suggests a back and forth thinking between details, i.e., material studies focusing on biological, technical, computational understanding of materials, and wholeness, i.e., the way in which the material is approached from the perspective of end-users, appraised within a product, and embedded in a context of use.

We are currently inviting applications for an associate professor Tenure Track position for a candidate who can bridge the gap between Materials, Fabrication and Human Computer Interaction and will work on the following topics:

- Research into data-driven approaches for seamless integration of hybrid material systems (physical, digital, biological) into user interfaces;

- Research into the development of digital tools for novice designers to foster the advancement of hybrid material systems through the different stages of a design process, including conceptualization, embodiment, and fabrication.

You will actively participate in multidisciplinary collaboration with Industrial Design and Engineering colleagues and our research partners. You will also contribute to the development and teaching of courses and educational programs at BSc and MSc level and supervise PhD and MSc students, write project proposals, and participate in faculty committees.