Call for Applications

Research Fellow in Trustworthy Conversational Systems and Human-Robot Interaction
Heriot-Watt University – School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
Location: Edinburgh
Salary: £41,526 to £49,553 grade 8
Hours: Full Time
Contract: Type: Fixed-Term/Contract
Placed On: 23rd August 2021
Job Ref: 1427
https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CIM832/research-fellow-conversational-systems-and-human-robot-interaction

Application deadline: 17th September 2021

Heriot-Watt University is looking for an experienced Research Fellow to lead a body of work looking at trust and how it manifests in language and human-robot interaction. This work will be part of the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Node on Trust, with collaborators the University of Manchester and Imperial College London, researching into how trust can form between robots and humans through interaction (see http://trust.tas.ac.uk for more details). The successful applicant will be based at our Edinburgh, UK campus and be affiliated with the Edinburgh Centre of Robotics, the new National Robotarium opening in early 2022 and the Interaction Lab.

The role will include using the latest machine learning methods to model and predict trust, moving towards intelligent conversational systems and social robots that can detect and adapt to fluctuations in user-trust. The role will also involve evaluations with human subjects in realistic scenarios.

The successful appointee will be expected to undertake the following:

• Define objectives and conduct individual and collaborative research, making use of the latest techniques and methods. Disseminate results in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, and/or other appropriate media. Continue to update personal knowledge and to develop skills within own specialist research area.
• Contribute to the production of research reports and publications. Analyse and interpret the results of research and generate original ideas based on outcomes.
• Help prepare proposals to external funding bodies.
• Assist the development of student research skills, contribute to the assessment of student knowledge in the context of teaching and supervision duties.
• Participate in internal/external networks for the exchange of information and to form relationships for future collaboration.

EDUCATION, QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Essential Criteria

• PhD in a relevant area of NLP/Conversational AI/Robotics/Computer Science or related subject.
• Have a strong theoretical understanding and an experimental background in one or more of the following fields: NLP, NLG, Conversational AI, Dialogue Modelling, Spoken Dialogue Systems, Social Robotics or related area.
• Ability to lead own research agenda, possessing sufficient breadth and depth of specialist discipline knowledge and/or research methods and techniques to work in own area.
• Experience in leading the writing of scientific papers and a record of high-quality publications, for stage in career.
• Ability to formulate and progress work on their own initiative.
• Must be able to work as part of a team and/or multi-cultural work environment. Work on the experiments at Heriot-Watt and more widely with the collaborators at other Universities in the consortium and worldwide.
• Have excellent communication skills and experience in public presentations of scientific results.

Desirable Criteria

• Demonstrable high level of technical competence in building systems, experimental science and the analysis / modelling of the results.
• Evidence of ability, subject to opportunity, to guide other researchers, e.g. PhD students and junior researchers.
• Experience running evaluations with human-subjects either in person or using crowd-sourcing platforms, such as Amazon Turk/Prolific.
• Experience working with a multidisciplinary team.
• Capability to be self-directed and think innovatively.
• Write effective, scalable, and well-documented code.

Applications can be submitted at the following link: https://enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX/job/1427/?utm_medium=jobshare