Research Fellow, Computer Science / HCI

University of Southampton; Southampton; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

The University of Southampton's WellthLab seeks a Research Fellow or Senior Research Assistant to innovate interactive technologies aiming to improve well-being. This role involves collaborating across disciplines, developing projects focused on personal health practices, and enhancing remote interactions. Ideal candidates are nearing completion of a relevant PhD and are driven to lead in research that makes a significant societal impact.

Qualifications

• Candidates nearing completion of a relevant PhD.
• Motivated collaborators eager to develop research leadership.

Responsibilities

• Engaged in interdisciplinary projects focused on interactive technologies.
• Contribute to research leadership and innovative contributions.

Education

Relevant PhD

Job description

WellthLab in the Agents, Interactions & Complexity Group

Interested in innovating interactive technologies to help #makeNormalBetter for all? Excellent and committed researcher? Come join the WellthLab.

The WellthLab's mission is to explore how interactive technologies can support people to feel, how they feel, better. Our philosophy is to design for a minimal data dose, and our main methodology is inbodied interaction.

Some of the projects you’d be engaged in, towards building your own questions:

1. XB – directed self-experimentation for tuning personal knowledge skills and practice – Experiment in a Box (XB) is a core platform to facilitate guided self-experimentation in healthful practices with a Minimal Data Dose approach. We are exploring how to offer these experiments with minimal human support, and how to understand and support social contextualisation for community-based design. See our Experiment in a Box paper for examples.
2. Incidental Interaction (priority project) – exploring how everyday interactions like sitting, standing, getting out of bed, or closing a door can be instrumented to support healthful interactions, such as building strength or improving balance.
3. Synthesising co-presence – investigating what makes in-person interaction more intimate and effective than online meetings, and how biological signals and qualities in human co-presence can be synthesised to improve remote interaction.
4. Non-visual Augmented Reality for Learning in Context – leveraging movement and environment to build skills like second language acquisition for better, faster, and longer-lasting learning.
5. Future of Healthful Work – a large interdisciplinary program examining how technology can embody and normalise healthful work practices to enhance resilience and quality of life.

The WellthLab is interdisciplinary, mainly based in the Electronics and Computer Science School of the University of Southampton, collaborating with experts in Physiology, Psychology, Humanities, Arts, and Sociology. We seek motivated collaborators eager to develop research leadership, produce innovative contributions, and become field leaders in inbodied interaction approaches to #makeNormalBetter for all at scale.

If you are driven to succeed at an international level, you will find great opportunities here. Please review the person specification carefully. You will work with leading researchers, PhD students, colleagues, and stakeholders, gaining significant career development opportunities. Our members have progressed to careers in industry and academia. While aiming to #makeNormalBetter for all, we are committed to supporting your career growth.

If you have questions, please contact Prof. M.C. Schraefel directly at [e-mail].

Applications are invited from candidates working towards or nearing completion of a relevant PhD. The position will be titled Research Fellow upon PhD completion; prior to that, the title will be Senior Research Assistant.