Department of Computer Science and Technology, West Cambridge

Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available for 2 years.

A position is available to work on an exciting multi-disciplinary project related to creating adaptive robot social intelligence for wellbeing, with a starting date of 1 September 2021 (or the earliest thereof). The projects aims to (1) equip (humanoid) robots with novel socio-emotional intelligence and adaptation capabilities grounded in the state of the art in affective computing, social signal processing, computer vision and machine learning fields; and (2) deploy these robots as socio-emotionally smart embodied devices to enable their users maintain and improve their health and wellbeing.

The aspect of the project the applicant will mainly work on relates to computational and data-driven human-robot interaction (e.g., see https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8990043 ). This will involve (i) robot behaviour learning and generation from multimodal and multiparty data, and (ii) designing and undertaking HRI studies with the learned behaviour models, with applications to health and wellbeing. These will be achieved by working with the project team based in Cambridge and collaborating with the other project partners.

Essential requirements: Candidates must have very good programming skills (e.g., Python) and strong analytical skills. They should be open to collaborations and be self-motivated. Appointment at research associate level requires the candidate have a (or be close to completing) a PhD degree in computer science, electronic engineering, or a closely related discipline, with experience and a good (and relevant) publication record in Computational and/or Data-driven Human-Robot Interaction, Machine Learning for HRI/Robotics, or a closely related research area.

Desirable skills: It is desirable that the candidate (i) has experience with programming for deep learning, ideally applied to human behaviour analysis and understanding; or (ii) has experience in programming for real-time HRI applications; or (iii) has experience with undertaking HRI user studies, ideally related to health and wellbeing. This position can be filled by an appropriate candidate at research assistant or research associate level, depending on relevant qualifications and experience. Appointment at research associate level is dependent on having a PhD (or equivalent experience). Where a PhD has yet to be awarded appointment will initially be made as a research assistant and amended to research associate when the PhD is awarded. This position is funded through an EPSRC Grant.

https://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/29398/