Researcher position in Social Robotics - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

Department of Information Technology conducts research and education in a spectrum of areas within Computer Science and Information Technology. For more information, see http://www.it.uu.se

The Uppsala Social Robotics Lab (http://hri.research.it.uu.se/) led by Dr. Ginevra Castellano aims to design and develop robots that learn to interact socially with humans and bring benefits to the society we live in, for example in application areas such as education and assistive technology.

Duties/Research project: The position is focused on research but may include a limited amount (max 5%) of teaching, and institutional (max 5%) duties.
The topic of the position is social learning for co-adaptive social human-robot interactions.

The researcher will have the opportunity to work in one or more projects on personalised and co-adaptive human-robot interaction, funded by the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, in collaboration with KTH Stockholm and the University of Gothenburg. The project will include the development of novel user modeling and adaptive learning methods to allow social robots to adapt in a natural, personalised way to their users, as well as the implementation of human-robot interactions studies to test the effectiveness of these methods. The candidate will be expected to collaborate closely with the project partners and be involved in supervision of PhD and MSc students.

The researcher will be part of the Uppsala Social Robotics Lab at the Division of Visual Information and Interaction of the Department of Information Technology.

The Uppsala Social Robotics Lab’s focus is on natural interaction with social artefacts such as robots and embodied virtual agents. This domain concerns bringing together multidisciplinary expertise to address new challenges in the area of social robotics, including mutual human-robot co-adaptation, multimodal multiparty natural interaction with social robots, multimodal human affect and social behavior recognition, multimodal expression generation, robot learning from users, behavior personalization, effects of embodiment (physical robot versus embodied virtual agent) and other fundamental aspects of human-robot interaction (HRI). State of the art robots are used, including the Pepper, Nao and Furhat robotic platforms. The Lab is involved in a number of different national and EU-funded projects in collaborations with international partners.

Requirements: The candidates must have a PhD degree in human-robot interaction or related areas relevant to the postdoc topic. Good programming skills and documented ability to conduct user studies are required. The PhD position is highly interdisciplinary and requires an understanding and/or interest in psychology and social sciences. Experience in machine learning for human-robot interaction is appreciated. Excellent skills in spoken and written English are required.

Assessment criteria: The ranking of eligible applicants will be based primarily on research expertise relevant for the project: research experience in human-robot interaction studies, social robotics, machine learning. High-quality publications as principal author in international peer-reviewed journals or conferences are expected. Documented programming skills are of particular importance, as well as successful teamwork and organizational skills. The assessment of applications is based primarily on the applicant's ability to conduct independent research based on scientific skill. Greater importance is attached to the quality of individual scientific work than to the amount of publications.

Application: The application should include a CV, a 1-page research statement, degrees certificates, a web reference to the PhD thesis, and a cover letter (indicating the name of referees and the earliest possible start date).

Working in Sweden: The quality of life in Sweden is high, and Swedes in general speak good English. The Swedish working climate emphasizes an open atmosphere, with active discussions involving both junior and senior staff. Researchers are full employees, with standard salaries and at least five weeks of paid vacation. Spouses of employees are entitled to work permits. Healthcare is free after a small co-pay.
The parental benefits in Sweden are among the best in the world, including extensive parental leave (for both parents), paid time off to care for sick children, and affordable day care.

Uppsala University strives to be an inclusive workplace that promotes equal opportunities and attracts qualified candidates who can contribute to the University’s excellence and diversity. We welcome applications from all sections of the community and from people of all backgrounds.
The Department of Information Technology strives for a more equal gender balance and welcomes specifically female applicants.

Salary: Individually negotiated salary.

Starting date: As soon as possible or as otherwise agreed.

Type of position: Temporary position for 1 year with possiblity for extension up to 2 years in total.

For further information about the position please contact Dr. Ginevra Castellano, ginevra.castellano@it.uu.se

Please submit your application by 28 June 2018, UFV-PA 2018/2135

Are you considering moving to Sweden to work at Uppsala University? If so, you will find a lot of information about working and living in Sweden at www.uu.se/joinus. You are also welcome to contact International Faculty and Staff Services at ifss@uadm.uu.se.