Research Associate - Material Science meet Human Computer Interaction

Applications are invited for a Research Associate position in the Bristol Interaction Group within the Dept. of Computer Science at the University of Bristol. The post-holder will have an understanding of material engineering to work on a project investigating the development of malleable and reconfigurable interactive devices. This line of investigation is part of a large project that aims at rethinking the way we design interactive devices and create more synergies between the field of HCI and Material Science.

The role is part of a two year EPSRC project that aims at rethinking processes to create interactive devices. We want these processes to exploit advances made in the fundamental sciences used to create automobile, and to bring morphing abilities to interactive devices, e.g. giving them reconfigurable affordance that unleash the humans’ interactive potential. However, implementation of morphing interactive devices is far off despite tremendous breakthroughs in advanced materials. The problem is that tools and methods are confined to the automotive industry, focused on large-scale systems rather than small scale ones, and whose outcomes are inaccessible to researchers with no expertise in material engineering.

The role being advertised for is to support this strand of work. You will be involved working with team partners in Bristol (Bristol Interaction Group and Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science) to extract outcomes and savoir-faire from the field of Material Science (MS) in a comprehensive format that can be coupled with developments (e.g. flexible Eink displays) from Human Computer Interaction.

You will initially work closely with other Research Associates and PhD students in the lab who are looking at creating shape-changing devices and/or tools to design user interfaces for them. There will also be close collaboration with Dr. Anne Roudaut, Dr. David Holman (Tactual Labs CA) and Mr. Zuniga (Intel US), as well at with the Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science (ACCIS) group. Within this broad objective there will be plenty of freedom and flexibility in shaping the research project. The ultimate key requirement is to demonstrate academic excellence through high-quality peer-reviewed papers and strong interaction with the peer-community. We are looking for a candidate with skills in smart material such as morphing structure or actuated material and who is also confident in building hardware interactive prototypes.

You will be based within the Bristol Interaction Group (http://big.cs.bris.ac.uk/) at the University of Bristol. The group consists of 5 staff members from computer science/hardware electronics and two visiting fellows who bring expertise in sociology and ethnography. This diverse mix of researchers drives the research interests of this group, which is concerned with drawing together traditionally disparate fields of electronic hardware with human interaction in public settings. The group’s existing facilities include a 100m2 dedicated prototyping laboratory next to our research offices populated with supporting materials and equipment. We are a young and ambitious team who have collectively publish every-year at top conferences like CHI, UIST and currently hold over £5m of external research funding from government and industry. RAs and PhDs from our group have gone on to create start-ups, join industrial research labs or join as lecturers (eqv. To US tenure-track Assistant Professor) at other academic institutions.

This post is being offered on a full time, open-ended contract funded initially for 1 year with the possibility of extension.

Informal Enquiries:
For informal enquiries, please contact Dr. Anne Roudaut csxar@cs.bris.ac.uk