Research Fellow in Interactive Technologies for Health Resilience

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PhD in Computer Science, Electronics, Engineering or Related with Human Centred Design focus? Want to use your creative skills to help #makeNormalBetter 4all @scale? Come join the WellthLab

How do you design technologies to help people build the knowledge, skills and practice they need to feel better – possibly without that very technology? How create interactive technology, for individual to infrastructure to help people, groups, communities thrive – all day long, forever.

If you have a background in Computer Science, Human Computer Interactions (HCI), and experience building apps – that’s fantastic. If you have a background in Electronics, Engineering or related areas in BioTech & embrace human centred experimental methodology, are interested in co-design with real people for real benefit, tell us what you’d bring to realising these projects in the wellthLab.

Core projects you’d be engaged on:

· Elder Athletes and Incidental Interaction (priority project) – How design interactions to help elders use daily strength moves, like standing, reaching, grabbing, pulling to build the strength needed to make life easier and have independence sustained longer – without getting in a person’s way, or making anyone feel ordered about? Our mission: eliminate frailty. Our approach in this EPSRC project? incidental interaction. Researchers will be meeting with a host of partners from NHS to industry.

· Synthesising co-presence – COVID let us know the power of online meetings, but also their limitations. What makes in-person interaction more intimate and challenging than online meetings? What signals and qualities in human-to-human interaction might we synthesise to create better quality interaction when remote? As Our mission: improve virtually mediated creativity; help eliminate loneliness?

· Non-visual Augmented Reality for Learning in Context – Movement and memory go together. How can we leverage and augment movement over and through our environment to build new skills – from second language acquisition, to social interaction. How use computational augmentation – in other modes than vision - to help us build knowledge, skills and practice to learn how to thrive without reliance on that technology?

· Future of Healthful Work – Is the future of work only hybrid working? Is it just being sedentary in different places? What does truly healthful work look and feel like? And what are the interactive technologies that will support it? What if instead of “smart watches” telling us to stand up from time to time, our work had healthful practices wired in – no reminders required because it was healthful out of the box? Instead of having to “exercise” to recover from the strains of work, what if great healthful work eliminated the need for “exercise”? What would the role of interactive technologies be? And what would be the methodologies of their interactions? Take a look at our Experiment in a Box paper for examples. Our lab takes an Inbodied Interaction approach,to these areas. You can find background information on our research and theory on the WellthLab website.

If these research challenges interest you, tell us what you would bring to them to help realise the technology. We are particularly, though not exclusively, interested in creative software approaches and the ability to develop and test applications.

Besides your passion and insights, regardless of background, we are looking for your skills to prototype and test ideas using Javascript and React – for iOS and Android - as well as having knowledge of mixed-methods research and experience running user studies. Skills in electronics and sensor fabrication also welcome.

Along with these skills you do need to be comfortable analysing study data using appropriate statistics and complementing quantitative analysis with qualitative methods. You’ll be expected to point to clear examples of those skills – journal papers, projects, or similar. Tell us what your skills can contribute to realising these projects

Interest in neurology, and in physiological signal processing from EEG to breathing and/or creating tactile interactions is also of interest. Because these projects are all engaging physical human performance, having qualifications or practical experience in some motor learning activity such as acoustic instrument, or team or individual sport will be a benefit. The WellthLab is interdisciplinary – our members are mainly situated in the Electronics and Computer Science School of the University of Southampton. We also collaborate with academics in Physiology, Psychology, Humanities, Arts and Sociology. As such, we are looking for people who are motivated to collaborate with these teams, and who are keen to build their research leadership skills, to develop innovative, strong research contributions, and to become a field leader in inbodied interaction approaches to help #makeNormalBetter for all, at scale.

If you have the drive to do the challenging work to succeed at an international level, you’ll be in great company. While you help us #makeNormalBetter for all at scale, we are committed to help you build your career. 

If you have any questions, please contact prof m.c. schraefel directly at [email protected]

Equality, diversity and Inclusion is central to the ethos in the School of Electronics and Computer Science. We particularly encourage women, Black, Asian and minority ethnic, LGBT+ and disabled applicants to apply. We are committed to improving equality for women in science and have been successful in achieving an Athena SWAN bronze award in April 2020.   

 The University of Southampton is in the top 1% of world universities and in the top 10 of the UK’s research-intensive universities. The University of Southampton is committed to sustainability and being a globally responsible university and has recently been awarded the Platinum EcoAward.  The WellthLab itself is committed to social justice, sustainability and contributing to a circular economy in all work. 

 **subject to qualifying criteria

*Applications for Research Fellow positions will be considered from candidates who are working towards or nearing completion of a relevant PhD qualification. The title of Research Fellow will be applied upon successful completion of the PhD. Prior to the qualification being awarded, the title of Senior Research Assistant will be given.

Application Procedure 

You should submit your completed online application form at https://jobs.soton.ac.uk. The application deadline will be midnight on the closing date stated above. If you need any assistance, please call Lauren Ward (Recruitment Team) on +44 (0) 23 8059 2750 or email [email protected]. Please quote reference 1937822FP on all correspondence.

Further details:

We aim to be an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Please note that applications from agencies will not be accepted unless indicated in the job advert.