[alife] 3 Research Positions in Robot-Human Interaction

[Chrystopher L. Nehaniv]

3 Research Positions in Robot-Human Interaction:
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The University of Hertfordshire
Department of Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences

Research Fellow in Robot Learning
(GBP 18,409 per annum)    Ref:  D6085
Fixed-term (18 month)

Research Assistant in Robot-Human Interaction
(GBP 14,692 per annum)      Ref:  D6086
Fixed-term (up to 36 months)

Research Assistant
(GBP 14,692 per annum)      Ref:  D6087
Fixed-term (9 months)

Applications are invited for full-time research assistant/research 
fellow posts. The posts offer the opportunity to work within the 
Adaptive Systems Research Group, a proactive and dynamic research  team 
with an excellent international research profile. The successful 
candidates will work in the European project COGNIRON (Cognitive Robot 
Companion), aiming at developing and evaluating mechanisms, models and 
cognitive functions for a new generation of personal robots. Work at 
University of Hertfordshire will focus on social learning and 
robot-human interaction. Applicants should be interested in working in 
an interdisciplinary and European research team.

Applicants for the Research Fellow post are expected to have excellent 
qualifications and experience in biologically-inspired Artificial 
Intelligence and Robot Learning research, as well as a good research 
track record. The post is suitable for candidates with a postgraduate 
degree (MSc/MEng or PhD). The postholder will be expected to study robot 
imitation learning and the correspondence problem, i.e. how to find 
appropriate mappings between a human demonstrator and a robot imitator, 
will be investigated.  The work includes working with physics-based 
computer simulations, and possibly programming of suitable mobile 
robots. The position is based on a fixed-term contract of up to 18 
months. Start date: February 2004.

Applicants for the post of Research Assistant in Robot-Human Interaction 
are expected to have good qualifications in Artificial Intelligence or 
Mobile Robotics. Some knowledge in psychology, cognitive science or 
related disciplines is desirable. This particular post will involve 
studies into interaction styles and personal spaces in the context of 
robot-human interaction. The work comprises the design and evaluation of 
user studies as well as programming of a suitable human-sized mobile 
robot (as part of a team-effort). The work  to be carried out is 
suitable as a basis of pursuing PhD research. The position is based on a 
fixed-term contract of up to three years.  Start date: April 2004.

Applicants for the post of Research Assistant are expected to have a 
background  in Psychology, Cognitive Science, or related areas involving 
human subjects. This particular post will involve the design, conduct 
and statistical evaluation of experiments with human subjects into 
anthropomorphism and intentionality in the context of robot-human 
interaction. The position is based on a fixed-term contract of up to 
nine months. Start date: April 2004.

Informal enquiries can be made to the research coordinator Prof. Kerstin 
Dautenhahn (K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk).

Closing Date                 20 November 2003
Applications can be made online at http://recruitment.herts.ac.uk/recruit/


Contact:

Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn
Professor of Artificial Intelligence
Adaptive Systems Research Group
http://adapsys.feis.herts.ac.uk/
The University of Hertfordshire, Department of Computer Science
College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, United Kingdom
URL: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd
E-mail: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk
Fax: +44-1707-284-303 Tel: +44-1707-284-333