PhD position in Data-driven socially assistive robotics - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

The Department of Information Technology has approximately 300 employees and conducts research and education in a spectrum of areas within Computer Science and Information Technology. The research is organized in five Divisions, and the research at the Division of Visual Information and Interaction is a unique combination of expertise in computerized image analysis and human-computer interaction. More information about the department and its activities can be found at http://www.it.uu.se.

The Uppsala Social Robotics Lab (https://usr-lab.com) led by Prof. 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.

The PhD position in data-driven socially assistive robotics for medical applications is available within a project funded by Uppsala University’s WoMHeR (Women’s Mental Health during the Reproductive lifespan) Centre, in collaboration with the Department of Neuroscience.

The PhD project will include the development and evaluation of novel machine learning-based methods for robot-assisted diagnosis of women’s depression around childbirth via automatic analysis of multimodal user behaviour in interactive scenarios.

The student 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.

Requirements: The candidate must have (at the time of the start of the project) a Master of Science degree in computer science or related areas relevant to the PhD project topics. Good programming skills are required and expertise in machine learning appreciated. The PhD position is highly interdisciplinary and requires an understanding and/or interest in psychology and social sciences and willingness to work in an interdisciplinary team.

Good communication skills in English, both spoken and written, are required. Prior knowledge of Swedish is not required.

Application: The application should include a description of yourself, your research interests, reasons for applying for this particular PhD position and past experience (max. 3 pages), a CV, copies of relevant University degrees and transcripts, links to relevant publications and your MSc thesis (or a summary in case the thesis work is ongoing) and other relevant documents. Candidates are encouraged to provide contact information to up to 3 reference persons. We would also like to know your earliest possible date for starting.

Rules governing PhD students are set out in the Higher Education Ordinance chapter 5, §§ 1-7 and in Uppsala University's rules and guidelines http://regler.uu.se/?languageId=1.

Salary: According to local agreement for PhD students.

Starting date: As soon as possible.

Type of employment: Temporary position according to the Higher Education Ordinance chapter 5 § 7. The position is for four years, but may be extended by teaching and department duties (at most 20%).

Scope of employment: 100 %

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

Please submit your application by 22 of June 2020, UFV-PA 2020/2127.

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.