Research Associate / Senior Research Associate in Playful Edible Interfaces

The role

This is an exciting opportunity for a Research Associate / Senior Research Associate position to join the Diverse-Ability Interaction Lab (Dive Lab), led by Dr Oussama Metatla, within the Bristol Interaction Group (BIG) at the University of Bristol.

In the Dive Lab, we study interactions between disabled and non-disabled people to design, engineer and evaluate technologies that support more inclusion in human society, spanning a wide range of groups, domains, and contexts, including visual impairments, neurodiversity, and cognitive and physical impairments in education, work, and leisure.

The postholder will join a multidisciplinary team working on the inclusiveXplay project (supported by an ERC-selected Consolidator Grant, funded by UKRI), to investigate how cross-sensory and embodied cognition informs the design of novel technologies that can support early motor, cognitive and social development of blind and visually impaired (BVI) preschool-aged children when they interact with their sighted peers.

The postholder will lead the edible interactions aspects of the inclusiveXplay project: to imagine, design, and engineer novel playful edible interfaces and to investigate how they can support developmental milestones in preschool age disabled and non-disabled children.

What will you be doing?

• You will explore approaches to designing and engineering edible interfaces with a particular focus on playful interaction and early development.
• You will investigate approaches to designing edible interfaces and how they might be augmented with a wider range of sensory modalities (e.g., olfactory, auditory, and visual display).
• You will employ iterative design and development to construct and evaluate a range of prototypes. This will contribute new knowledge to the growing body of literature on human-food interaction and edible interfaces and particularly in the areas of disability and child-computer interaction.

You should apply if

You are interested in engineering novel edible interfaces using a range of construction materials and mechanisms, and in collaborating with interaction designers, experimental psychologists, and human-computer interaction experts, to:

• Lead the design and engineering of novel edible interfaces and their augmentation with a wider range of sensory modalities.
• Plan and execute iterative design, development, and evaluations.
• Collect data characterising playful edible interactions with disabled and non-disabled children.
• Translate findings into functional prototypes for testing with further end users in other inclusiveXplay project activities, e.g., co-design activities, and experimental studies.
• Write up and submit research findings to top publication venues.

Please view the attached Job Description for a full view of requirements. 

Additional information

For informal queries please contact Dr Oussama Metatla; o.metatla@bristol.ac.uk 

To find out more about what it's like to work in the Faculty of Engineering, and how the Faculty supports people to achieve their potential, please see our staff blog:

https://engineeringincludesme.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/

Interviews are anticipated to be held on 22 May 2024.

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We recently launched our strategy to 2030 tying together our mission, vision and values.

The University of Bristol aims to be a place where everyone feels able to be themselves and do their best in an inclusive working environment where all colleagues can thrive and reach their full potential. We want to attract, develop, and retain individuals with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives – particularly people of colour, LGBT+ and disabled people - because diversity of people and ideas remains integral to our excellence as a global civic institution.

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