Research Associate in Human-robot Interaction

**UE07: £40,247.00 - £47,874.00 Per Annum.**

**CSE / School of Informatics.**

**Fixed Term Contract - 2 Years.**

**Full Time - 35 Hours Per Week.**

**The Opportunity**:
This post will be part of the Centre for AI for Assistive Autonomy, a mission-driven research centre established using a UKRI Turing AI World Leading Researcher Fellowship awarded to Prof Subramanian Ramamoorthy.

In addition to the Centre Director (Ramamoorthy), the post holder will have the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues in a wide range of specialties across the University, including in machine learning and vision (e.g. Fisher, Mac Aodha, Bilen, Sevilla-Lara, Vergari), probabilistic programming (e.g. Narayanaswamy, Kammar, Belle), natural language understanding and interaction (e.g. Lascarides, Lapata, Gal), computational cognitive science and neuroscience (e.g. Lucas, Hennig, Nolan, Rajendran), as well as in robotics and neurotechnology (e.g. Vijayakumar, Nazarpour) and engineering of novel sensing and devices (Prodromakis, Koutsos, Amjadi). Beyond the university, the Centre will pursue collaborations with international teams including at The University of Texas at Austin (Stone), Stanford University (Kochenderfer), University of Bremen (Beetz) and Monash University (Burke).

The Centre will also have a strong industrial partner network, including Fourier Intelligence, Honda Research Europe, Shadow Robot, Sony Europe and other organisations who will be engaged in the Centre’s work at all stages, with the expectation that this network grows over time as the Centre’s work grows and begins to have broader impacts.

The central purpose of the job is to carry out research on robot learning in human-robot interaction settings including assistance with activities of daily living (e.g. personal care and tasks in the kitchen).

Building on an established track record and facilities available within the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, the post holder will develop new methods for interactively intelligent robotic systems addressing a range of issues including the following:

- Human-in-the-loop adaptation strategies for force and impedance control
- Real-time perception for human intention and environmental state inference
- Planning and decision making in shared autonomy contexts
- Incorporation of guidance from speech, dialogue and other modalities

It is also expected that the post holder will contribute to the development of new assets in the form of experimental robotic systems and demonstrators. These will be expected to make use of data and model assets created by other Centre researchers. This work will be carried out in collaboration with stakeholders including clinical researchers (e.g. at the Anne Rowling Neurology Clinic) and industrial partners (e.g. Fourier Intelligence, Smplicare).

**Your skills and attributes for success**:
**Essential**:

- A PhD (or near completion) in robotics, preferably with a focus on robot learning
- An excellent track record of publications in top-tier journals (e.g. IEEE Trans. or broad-interest science venues) and/or conferences in AI (e.g. IJCAI, AAAI, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR), robotics (e.g. R:SS, CoRL, ICRA), or allied areas
- Excellent proven experience of developing field robotics systems in complex environments
- Ability to work effectively as part of a team, to meet deadlines, and to report on project progress
- Ability to communicate complex information clearly, orally and in writing.

**Desirable**:

- Research experience with machine learning in human-robot interaction domains
- Research experience with real-time perception and scene understanding methods based on state-of-the-art machine learning methods
- Demonstrated experience of the development and management of projects involving multiple stakeholders.

**Click to view a copy of the full**job description**(opens new browser tab)

**Application Information**:

- CV
- Cover letter

**As a valued member of our team you can expect**:

- A competitive salary
- An exciting, positive, creative, challenging and rewarding place to work.
- To be part of a diverse and vibrant international community
- Comprehensive Staff Benefits, such as a generous holiday entitlement, competitive pension schemes, staff discounts, and family-friendly initiatives. Check out the full list on our **staff benefits page**(opens in a new tab) and use our reward calculator to discover the total value of your pay and benefits

**Championing equality, diversity and inclusion**

The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality.

Prior to any employment commencing with the University you will be required to evidence your right to work in the UK. Further information is available on our **right to work webpages**(opens new browser tab)

**Key date