Affective Computing Data Scientist - KTP Associate

Through the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Programme, Blueskeye, in partnership with Queen’s University Belfast, has an exciting and unique employment opportunity for a suitably-qualified graduate to develop AI-enhanced teletherapy.

The project will analyse dyadic interactions between therapists and clients to support automatic monitoring of mental health severity, provide real-time and post-session insight, and improve the quality, accessibility and outcomes of remote (and face-to-face) talking therapies in an ethical and trustworthy manner.

Blueskeye is the world’s leading company for the sensing of human mental state from face and voice behaviour patterns. The core technology was developed over 20 years as part of the Behaviomedics research programme headed up by Professor Michel Valstar. The technology is clinical grade and Blueskeye is the only company worldwide on a path to regulatory approval for clinical use.

This KTP underpins the company’s “B-Healthy Teletherapy” strategy, which seeks to score every therapeutic interaction for empathy and therapeutic alignment, store and summarise sessions, support session preparation and quality assurance, and provide digital biomarkers of mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety.

This role is company-based (at Blueskeye in Nottingham) and will be delivered in collaboration with the School of Psychology at Queen’s.

Information about the company partner can be found at: https://www.blueskeye.com/

About the person:

The successful candidate must have, and your application should clearly demonstrate that you meet the following criteria:

• Hold a minimum of a Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Analytics, Psychology or a closely related discipline.
• Completion of a relevant research project or student placement.
• Relevant experience in research methods, data collection and statistical analysis.
• Relevant experience of affective computing and/or social signal processing, and the analysis of human expressive behaviour (facial expression, voice, gesture).
• High level of IT skills, including relevant experience of running data pre/post-processing scripts and managing complex data structures.
• Conceptual familiarity with psychotherapy and/or the training of clinicians in preparation for service-user interaction.

Please note the above are not an exhaustive list. Applicants must adequately evidence how they have gained relevant experience/knowledge/skills in detail, using examples and dates where appropriate to demonstrate that they meet these requirements. It is not sufficient to simply list duties/skills/modules/assignment titles as evidence.

A KTP role is the perfect launchpad for your career providing the opportunity to apply your academic knowledge and skills to deliver a strategic innovation project within a company. One of the unique benefits to KTP is access to a substantial development budget and the support and guidance of Queen’s world-class academics and researchers. This role offers an excellent opportunity to work closely between academia and industry whilst developing your skills to run and manage projects.

Information about the KTP Programme can be found on our website.

Please note:

• Applicants may be sent a technical test to complete and return as part of the shortlisting process.
• Queen’s reserves the right to close the advert early, therefore this advert will be closed once a maximum of 80 applications have been submitted.
• This is a fixed term position available for 24 months.

Customer advert reference: 26/113523

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