PhD position in Cognitive Science, Human Performance, and Human Swarm Teaming (1.0 FTE)

Project information
This PhD position is part of the NWO funded project ‘STEADFAST – Swarm Technology Enabling Advanced Drone-Facilitated Active Support Tactics for Military and First Responder Operations‘. This project aims to develop a defensive semi-autonomous Human Swarm Teaming system with flexible and adaptive autonomy, to support situational awareness in scenarios with a large number of civilian or military casualties, such as natural disaster, industrial accidents or terrorist attacks. A core innovative feature of the system is the development of a shared mental model for the AI systems and the human user in the form of a multi-user human-swarm interface. The interface supports flexible swarm autonomy with the help of situational data and includes information about human cognitive performance and swarm health. The system will be designed in close collaboration with experts on AI ethics and law. 

Your efforts will be primarily devoted to understanding Human-Swarm Teaming (HST) to enable flexible swarm autonomy through systematic review of the literature, developing a framework for human and autonomous control of drone-swarm behaviors, and conducting experiments with human participants in simulated virtual environments as well as realistic field settings. Through this work you will contribute to the development and test/revision of  the methods for HST. 

You will work closely with your supervisors as well as with a postdoc and software engineer who will develop and optimize the HST interface. The project is situated within a larger consortium, which you will also be expected to contribute to. 

Profile
The research will be conducted under supervision of prof. dr. Marie Postma and co-promotors dr. Travis J. Wiltshire and dr. Murat Kirtay.

The successful candidate is expected to:

• Perform scientific research in the domain described;
• Develop innovative methods;
• Present results at (international) conferences;
• Publish results in scientific journals;
• Participate in activities of the project group and consortium, mainly in Tilburg but sometimes on site with project partners at various locations within the country
• 0.1 fte will be dedicated toward educational tasks such as teaching and supervision

Candidates should:

• Have a (research) MSc. in a relevant area such as Cognitive Science, Human Factors, Robotics, Computer Science, AI, Data Science, or a related discipline;
• Strong programming skills in R and/or Python. Any other programming languages are a pro;
• Interest (and ideally, research and coding experience) in Human-Machine Interaction;
• Have a strong interest in complex sociotechnical systems, dynamics, and/or human-autonomy teamwork;
• Have excellent analytical skills and be highly motivated and rigorous;
• Have good technical understanding (or ability to learn) research design and methodologies and advanced statistics;
• Be a fast learner, autonomous and creative, show dedication and be hard working;
• Possess good communication skills and be an efficient ¬¬(team) worker in an interdisciplinary team;
• Ability and willingness to collaborate in a multidisciplinary research team and with organizational partners;
• Be fluent in English, both spoken and written.

This PhD position will be employed at Tilburg University. We offer:

• A full-time position.
• The selected candidate will start with a contract for one year. Upon a positive outcome of the first-year evaluation, the candidate will be offered an employment contract for the remaining three years.
• A minimum gross salary of  € 2,901 per month up to a maximum of € 3,707 in the fourth year;
• A holiday allowance of 8% and an end-of-year bonus of 8.3% (annually);
• Candidates from outside the Netherlands may qualify for a tax-free allowance. During the first 20 months, 30% of the salary will be reimbursed untaxed. In the next 20 months, this percentage drops to 20% and during the last 20 months, the untaxed reimbursement is 10% of the salary. The university will apply for such an allowance on their behalf;
• Assistance in finding accommodation (for foreign employees);
• The opportunity to perform cutting edge research in a large-scale science project involving TiU, TU/e, TU Delft,  and several commercial partners bringing together expertise of several senior researchers;
• Support for your personal development and career planning including participation in courses, summer schools, conference visits, research visits to other institutes (both academic and industrial), etc.;
• A broad package of fringe benefits (including excellent technical infrastructure, savings schemes and excellent sport facilities).
• The collective labor agreement of the Dutch Universities applies

The School and the department
The Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence department at Tilburg University is part of the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences. The department emphasizes innovative cutting-edge research in those areas of cognitive science that bring together psychological and computational theories and methodologies. The group is responsible for the Bachelor and the Master program Cognitive Science & Artificial Intelligence, is co-responsible for the university-wide data science Master program Data Science & Society, and is affiliated with the Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (http://www.jads.nl). Researchers in the Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence track have access to computer clusters, experimental lab facilities, and the virtual and mixed reality DAF Technology Lab and its sensing technologies (https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/campus/experiencing-virtual-reality/). Moreover, researchers play an important role in Mind Labs (http://www.mind-labs.eu), an initiative that fosters collaborations between knowledge institutions and corporations in the field of interactive technologies and behavior.

More detailed project information can be provided on request. Please contact prof dr. Marie Postma (Marie.Postma@tilburguniversity.edu), dr. Travis J. Wiltshire (T.J.Wiltshire@tilburguniversity.edu), or dr. Murat Kirtay (M.Kirtay@tilburguniversity.edu).

For this application you must submit a motivation letter, a detailed CV including contact information for two references, and proof of English proficiency (TOEFL/IETS) if you are not a native English speaker. The deadline for submitting your application is May 2. Starting date of this position is preferably June 2.