PhD Studentship: Designing Human-AI Teams for Meaningful Human Control of 'Machine-Speed' Operations

The Centre for National Training and Research Excellence in Understanding Behaviour (Centre-UB) is inviting applications for a Doctoral Studentship in association with BAE Systems, to start from 4 January 2027.

This PhD explores the design of human-AI teams when the AI agents operate at ‘machine-speed’ (i.e., significantly faster than human cognitive and communication capabilities). The research will be applicable to command teams working in uncertain and information-degraded environments. Meaningful human control is necessary when humans have to be retained in or on the loop. This requires the AI to be explainable, allowing people to make sense of and set constraints on, the recommendations and behaviour of machine speed decision-making.

The PhD considers the following questions (although these might change as the research develops along lines that the PhD student and sponsors find particularly compelling):

1. How can we align human decision-making and situation awareness with the processing speed and data capacity of Artificial Intelligence systems, i.e., ‘machine-speed’ operations, without disrupting or compromising such operations?
2. How can we ensure humans retain authority for actions undertaken as the result of recommendations made through machine-speed operations?
3. How can we ensure that humans have sufficient understanding of the recommendations made through machine-speed operations?
4. How can we ensure that machine-speed operations are sufficiently aware of the preferences, intuitions and experience of humans working with them?

The project will involve experiments in which human participants interact with AI agents (e.g., developed using CrewAI or similar platform) and will run in teams of 4-6 agents (human or AI), e.g., the teams could be all human, all AI, or combinations of these to explore how different configurations of human-agent teams affect human situation awareness, decision making, and task performance.

We are looking for a highly talented and dedicated PhD student with a 1st class or 2:1 degree in the field of Cognitive Psychology, Human Factors, Ergonomics, Human-Computer Interaction, or related behavioural science. An MSc degree in a relevant area is desirable though not necessary. Previous experience with experiments involving human participants (particularly in decision making and / or teams), and statistical analysis of data is essential. Familiarity with agentic AI, programming, or computational modelling is desirable. Prospective applicants are not expected to be expert in all these areas as training and support will be given where appropriate, but they must demonstrate a range of inter-disciplinary skills, be focussed on human-centred solutions supported by technology, and have excellent communication skills (both written and verbal).

Interviews for this studentship are expected to take place on 16 November 2026.

Informal enquiries about the project prior to application can be directed to Professor Chris Baber (c.baber@bham.ac.uk). 

Funding notes:

Centre-UB studentships cover tuition fees, a maintenance stipend, support for research training, as well as research activity support grants. This studentship is open to Home applicants only. You can find further details at www.centre-ub.org

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