Four new PhD positions in Design@Scale Lab TU Delft

At the start of 2021, Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft announced the foundation of the Design@Scale Lab. This new Delft AI Lab will focus on combining Artificial Intelligence with Human Intelligence to design at scale, increasing our ability to tackle systemic challenges. The D@S Lab, led by Professor Gerd Kortuem, is now looking four bright and motivated PhD candidates to join its ranks. Application is open until April 4th, 2021.

The mission of the D@S Lab is to bring together TU Delft expertise in Design and Computer Science to establish a centre of excellence in Hybrid Intelligence for Societal-Scale Design. In order to achieve this ambition, D@S Lab is looking for PhD candidates along the four following research strands:

Human-AI Collaboration in Video-based Design Research (IDE)

In this PhD project you’ll aim to develop novel approaches for Human-AI Collaboration in the large-scale collection, interpretation, and use of video-diaries (captured for example by mobile phones and wearable cameras). Your role is to develop methods and tools for collective annotation and analysis of video-diaries by users, domain experts and designers; the development of AI methods for the effective integration of human and machine perspectives in the analysis of video-diaries, and the evaluation of the impact of large-scale video analysis on user research and design.

Design at Scale with Conversational Agents (IDE)

Your aim on this PhD is to explore the potential of conversational agents as creative “design partners” in user research and participatory design, and to develop novel approaches in using conversational agents for harnessing the collective intelligence of users, experts, and designers. Your role is the development of adaptive conversation strategies that drive user engagement and insights, the development of AI methods for the effective integration of human and machine perspectives in the analysis of large-scale conversational data, and the evaluation of the impact of conversational agents on user research and design.

For information about these two positions mentioned above and the selection procedure, please contact Assistant Professor Dr. Evangelos Niforatos, or Professor. Dr. Gerd Kortuem.

Human-AI Interaction for Design at Scale (at EEMCS faculty)

The aim of the research on this PhD project is to develop principles of human-AI interaction answering research questions such as how system behaviour conforms to human understanding of various tasks, and how to best explain system behaviour to human users and support decision-making. You will carry out interdisciplinary research with a particular focus on conversational crowd computing approaches that engage large groups of people through conversational interfaces.

Human-in-the-Loop AI for Design at Scale (at EEMCS faculty)

The research on this PhD project aims at developing guidelines and workflows for probing needs from design stakeholders and developing computational methods for testing AI system behaviour against such needs and improving AI systems by integrating human intelligence. You are expected to work in an interdisciplinary research team on real-world use cases. This research lies at the intersection of HCI, Design, and Artificial Intelligence, and has a strong focus on the combination of user research and system design.

For information about these two PhD positions and the selection procedure, please contact Assistant Professor Dr. Ujwal Gadiraju, or Assistant Professor Dr. Jie Yang.