PhD candidate behavior change towards sustainable living environments using artificial intelligence and gamification

Climate change is among the most impactful problems of this era. In this multidisciplinary PhD project, we aim at developing methods to inspire human behavior change towards a more sustainable life, supported by the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), grounded on theories from psychology and education science as well as practice. More specifically, we aim at designing AI systems that implement gamification elements and psychological intervention designs to facilitate behavior change towards adopting a sustainable life. 

The PhD candidate will work alongside domain experts (data science, psychology, and educational sciences) and supporting industrial organizations. The project has two aspects; technical and behavioral. The technical aspect addresses the development of the artificial intelligence system that uses the sensor data originating from smart-houses/offices for activity detection and prediction of the inhabitants. The behavioral aspect focuses on the design of the pedagogical model (e.g., the interventions of the system, gamification elements, feedback and instructions) and the psychological intervention mechanisms. There will be opportunities to set up living-labs in residential households and office buildings for data collection and prototype-testing.

To undertake this ambitious and rewarding project, we are looking for a PhD candidate who will be fully funded for four years. The candidate will be supervised by a team of professors from the Faculty of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Science, and Faculty of Psychology. Moreover, the candidate will get direct support from the Center for Actionable Research of the Open University (CAROU). In addition, the candidate will become a part of a large community of interdisciplinary PhD candidates as well as be embedded to some degree in the three faculties intersected by this project.

The project was designed as comprising four stages. First, you will design and conduct a systematic review on the determinants of energy-saving behavior, evaluations of (gamification in) interventions targeting energy-saving behavior. Second, along with the project team, you will set up one or more living lab(s), develop digital twins, and train and test machine learning models that capture inhabitant behavior patterns of residential households and commercial office spaces. Third, you will combine this with a qualitative study on determinants of and obstacles to energy-saving behavior in smart homes and smart offices. Fourth, you will combine your findings with theories from gamification and behavior change to develop and evaluate an intervention that facilitates behavior change toward a sustainable lifestyle.

• Survey the state-of-the-art AI practices in the context of smart-homes/offices, sensor networks, and the optimization of energy consumption. 
• Survey the literature on gamification and behavior change intervention mechanisms. 
• Design theoretical intervention mechanisms and pedagogical approaches toward facilitating energy-saving behavior of the inhabitants
• Use research methods such as experiments, design-based research rigorously as well as prototype-testing. 
• Train and test machine learning models to predict inhabitant activity, and to optimize energy consumption. 
• Publishing in relevant international journals 
• Presenting progress in academic conferences and relevant industry workshops
• Actively participating in the joint research meetings of the project team and the meetings of the institute of employment
• Following courses and partaking in research school SIKS.