Doctoral Researcher (Virtual Fashion and Wearable Design for Extended Reality) / Väitöskirjatutkija (Pelilliset älyvaatteet ja tekstiilit)

Job Description

The rise of virtual reality (VR) is reshaping social interaction, similar to the evolution of social media. While metaverse brings expressive avatars, concerns arise about identity congruence and potential disorders, and the need for solutions linking their physical and virtual selves. As such, the VirtuFashion Project emerges to address this, looking into the design of hybrid fashion accessories that bridge tangible and virtual realms. 

This PhD position will focus on designing and developing virtual clothing and empirically investigating the human-computer/clothing interaction in a virtual environment. The accepted candidate will work on designing and researching virtual wearables by focusing on their fashionable and playful features and developing innovative solutions to bridge the virtual sphere to its physical counterpart. The candidate will also explore a wide range of topics in which wearables can be used such as body-based interfaces, textile-based interaction, virtual reality environments, games and gamification applications. The accepted candidate will be supervised by Assistant Professor Oğuz ‘Oz’ Buruk and Dr. Çağlar Genç and work with the project manager of VirtuFashion, Shiva Jabari.

VirtuFashion, being a research-to-business project funded by Business Finland, aims at the commercialization preparation of the fashion accessories that will be prototyped through the project. The selected candidate is expected to contribute to the commercialization preparation and can be considered to take part in the commercialization of the products which will be produced as part of the project.

In addition to designing wearables for the virtual environments, the job includes research-related activities including conducting empirical research, writing and publishing (in top venues of the given area) articles, acquiring (or assisting in acquiring) further funding, co-organizing seminars, meeting with companies, participating in industrial and academic conferences and conventions related to the selected candidate’s research topic. The job description may include a small portion of teaching-related activities and participation in education or other faculty tasks that support your studies.

The selected candidate must, later on, be accepted into a doctoral program of our Faculty Information Technology and Communication Sciences. Please visit the admissions page for more information on eligibility requirements.

Requirements

The ideal candidate for this position is expected to:

• Master’s degree in computer science, software engineering, industrial design, fashion design, game design or related fields to human-computer interaction
• Strong technical skills such as proficiency in 3D modelling and animation tools
• Knowledge and experience in developing VR environments and virtual avatars and tools like Unity or Unreal Engine
• AR/VR development and testing
• Awareness of user preferences and behaviours in the virtual environment.  
• Experience in designing and developing working prototypes of wearables

The following qualities are appreciated:

• Background and experience in some of the following areas or closely related ones: Game Design, Fashion Technology, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Human-Computer Interaction, Product Design, Interaction Design,  Software Engineering, Computer Science, or related areas to fashion design, interaction design or game technologies.
• Prior knowledge of research on wearables, fashion design, smart textiles, AR/VR, or game design.
• Experience and/or knowledge in quantitative and qualitative research methods (including e.g. setting up experiments, survey research, quantitative data analysis, content analysis, thematic analysis, focus groups, design workshops)
• Experience in software design and development.
• Experience in prototyping, integration of sensors, working with maker tools such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi.
• Experience and interest in entrepreneurship and commercialization of research ideas.