Connectionists: Post-doc position using machine learning in interaction design - Hamilton Institute, NUIM

[Roderick Murray-Smith]

Post-doctoral Position

Applications are invited from well-qualified candidates for a two-year post-doctoral position at the Hamilton Institute, NUI Maynooth, Ireland. (30 minutes from Dublin)
http://www.hamilton.ie

The successful candidate will be an outstanding researcher, with a Ph.D. qualification, who can demonstrate an exceptional research track record or significant research potential at international level. We are looking for self-motivated, innovative researchers, who are able to take fundamental, novel ideas for interaction design and create prototype systems to test them, and run user evaluations to judge the quality of the ideas. A strong commitment to research excellence, an ability to work in an interdisciplinary team, mathematical modeling skills and programming ability are very important. 

The successful candidate will probably have background in one or more of: machine learning, control theory, signal processing and human-computer interaction design.

The successful candidate will be expected to take up the post no later than September 1st, 2006. Appointments will be at €45,000 p/a.  Informal enquires regarding the post can be made to Roderick Murray-Smith (rod.murraysmith at nuim.ie). 

Applications with CV including contact details of three referees and two significant papers should be sent electronically to hamilton at nuim.ie.

Project: 
A dynamic systems approach to Negotiated Interaction on mobile devices http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rod/DSNegInt.htm

Project Description: 
This project will develop a novel approach to interaction design, based on closed-loop system design and probabilistic reasoning. One of the motivations of the approach is to be able to include machine learning models seamlessly in the architecture at multiple levels. The approach makes interaction into a negotiation process, and is especially relevant for systems instrumented with sensors. We will be looking at location-aware, gestural, and multi-user interaction. It includes a dynamic simulation approach to gestural interaction which improves learnability, and robustness to user variability, while allowing users to become 'masters' with fluent, skilled ability to navigate information spaces in a continuous fashion. We shall build on our current sensor platform to create and test applications in spatial and gesturally controlled systems, with multimodal (vibrotactile and audio) feedback. The implementation will be primarily in C/Python on PocketPCs, and Series60 Nokia telephones, with sensor packs. 

For examples of the group's research, papers and videos of existing demonstrations, please see http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rod/dynamics.html
For a more complete description of the project, please visit http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rod/DSNegInt.htm

Roderick Murray-Smith
Hamilton Institute
NUI Maynooth
Co. Kildare
Ireland

email: hamilton at nuim.ie

to be received no later that 1st July, 2006.

Roderick Murray-Smith
Department of Computing Science
Glasgow University
Glasgow G12 8QQ
Scotland
Tel. (direct line) +44 141 330 4984
Skype callto:roderickmurraysmith
Tel. (secretarial) +44 141 330 4256
Fax. +44 141 330 4913
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rod

Also Senior Researcher at:
Hamilton Institute
NUI Maynooth, Co. Kildare
Ireland
http://www.hamilton.may.ie