Research Associate / Senior Research Associate in Cross-sensory Shape-Changing Interfaces

The role

This is an exciting opportunity for a Research Associate / Senior Research Associate position to join the Diverse-Ability Interaction Lab (Dive Lab), led by Dr Oussama Metatla, within the Bristol Interaction Group (BIG) at the University of Bristol.

In the Dive Lab, we study interactions between disabled and non-disabled people to design, engineer and evaluate technologies that support more inclusion in human society, spanning a wide range of groups, domains, and contexts, including visual impairments, neurodiversity, and cognitive and physical impairments in education, work, and leisure.

The postholder will join a multidisciplinary team working on the inclusiveXplay project (supported by an ERC-selected Consolidator Grant, funded by UKRI), to investigate how cross-sensory and embodied cognition informs the design of novel technologies that can support early motor, cognitive and social development of blind and visually impaired (BVI) preschool-aged children when they interact with their sighted peers. The postholder will lead the engineering aspects of the inclusiveXplay project: to imagine, design, and engineer novel shape-changing interfaces and to investigate how they can be augmented with a richer set of sensory modalities (visual, auditory, haptic, olfactory, and gustatory) for playful control and interaction by children.

What will you be doing?

You will explore approaches to engineering shape-change interfaces with a particular focus on playful interface control of shape changing forms. You will investigate approaches to augmenting shape changing interfaces with a wider range of sensory modalities (e.g., olfactory, auditory, and gustatory display). Finally, you will explore approaches for integrating outcomes into playful cross-sensory interactive shape-changing interfaces.

You will employ iterative hardware development to construct a range of prototypes, as well as rigorous empirical evaluations and testing to characterise the behaviour and capabilities of the developed prototypes.

This will contribute new knowledge to the growing body of literature on shape-changing interfaces and their potential for cross-sensory display and accessible interaction.

You should apply if

You are interested in engineering novel cross-sensory shape changing interfaces using a range of materials and actuation mechanisms, and in collaborating with interaction designers, experimental psychologists, and human-computer interaction experts, to:

• Lead the engineering of novel shape-changing displays and their augmentation with a wider range of sensory modalities.
• Design, plan and execute iterative hardware development and testing.
• Collect data characterising hardware behaviours and capabilities.
• Translate findings into functional prototypes for testing with end users in other inclusiveXplay project activities, e.g., co-design activities, and experimental studies.
• Write up and submit research findings to top publication venues.

Additional information

Salary: Grade I £37,099 – £41,732 per annum; Grade J £41,732 - £46,974 per annum

For informal queries please contact Dr Oussama Metatla; o.metatla@bristol.ac.uk

To find out more about what it's like to work in the Faculty of Engineering, and how the Faculty supports people to achieve their potential, please see our staff blog:

https://engineeringincludesme.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/ 

Interviews are anticipated to be held on 08/01/2024.

We recently launched our strategy to 2030 tying together our mission, vision and values. 

The University of Bristol aims to be a place where everyone feels able to be themselves and do their best in an inclusive working environment where all colleagues can thrive and reach their full potential. We want to attract, develop, and retain individuals with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives – particularly people of colour, LGBT+ and disabled people - because diversity of people and ideas remains integral to our excellence as a global civic institution.

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