Doctoral Researcher (Playful Smart Clothing Design or Smart Textile Development), 2 positions

Gamification Group (GG) and Intelligent Clothing Group (ICG) are together hiring two doctoral students for the following positions (Apply):

1) Playful Smart Clothing Design (mainly positioned in GG)

2) Smart Textile Development (mainly positioned in ICG)

Research in both positions is related to the ”Clothing-Integrated Interface (ClothFace) and Applications” project funded by the Academy of Finland. Selected candidates will enroll into PhD programs of Interactive Technology in the Faculty of Information Technology and Communications Sciences (Position 1) or Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology (Position 2) – or a combination thereof.

Position 1: Playful Smart Clothing Design 

This position will focus on designing, developing and empirically investigating the human-computer/clothing interaction of playful smart clothing. The accepted candidate will work on designing, developing and researching wearables by focusing on its fashionable and playful features and will 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. This project is a collaboration between the Gamification Group of Professor Juho Hamari and the Intelligent Clothing Group of Adjunct Professor Johanna Virkki. The accepted candidate will use the facilities of both research groups and will be supervised by Prof. Juho Hamari, Adj. Prof. Johanna Virkki and Dr. Oğuz Turan Buruk.

Job Description

In all these positions, the work is mainly composed of 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 candidate’s research topic. However, the job description may also include a small portion of teaching-related activities.

Requirements

The ideal candidate for this position should be able to combine strong technical skills such as electronic prototyping and coding with a creative skillset including a deep understanding of design processes and methods such as ideation, user inclusion, participatory design and so forth. We expect that the ideal candidate with a design background will have a technical orientation and experience on skills such as electronic prototyping, coding etc., while the ideal candidate with an engineering background has openness to and ideally experience on creative activities, design research and practice. We appreciate the candidates with a maker mindset and expect applicants to have experience in or willingness to learn crafting and rapid prototyping (using 3D printers & embroidery machines, creating rough prototypes with simple materials etc.)

The following qualities are appreciated:

1. Background in some of the following areas or on a closely related one: Human-Computer Interaction, Industrial Product Design, Fashion Design, Interaction Design, Game Design, Electronics Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or related areas to fashion design, interaction design or game technologies.
2. Prior knowledge of research on wearables, fashion design, smart textiles, virtual reality or game design.
3. 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)
4. Experience in software design and development.
5. Experience in prototyping, integration of sensors, working with maker tools such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi.

Successful candidates must be pursuing or will be accepted to study towards a doctoral degree in the faculty’s doctoral programme. Please visit the admissions webpage https://www.tuni.fi/en/study-with-us/programmes/doctoral-programmes for more information on eligibility requirements.

Position 2: Smart Textile Development

This position will focus on designing and developing RFID control technologies that are integrated into textile materials with the aim of developing fashionable wearable devices. The accepted candidate will work on designing, developing and researching wearables by focusing on practical implementation of passive RFID technology solutions into clothing. This project is a collaboration between the Gamification Group of Professor Juho Hamari and the Intelligent Clothing Group of Adjunct Professor Johanna Virkki. The accepted candidate will use facilities of both research groups and will be supervised by Adj. Prof. Johanna Virkki, Prof. Juho Hamari, and Dr. Oğuz Turan Buruk.

Job Description

In all these positions, the work is mainly composed of 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 candidate’s research topic. However, the job description may also include a small portion of teaching-related activities.

Requirements

The ideal candidate for this position should be able to combine strong technical skills such as electronic prototyping and coding with a creative skillset including a deep understanding of design processes and methods such as ideation, user inclusion, participatory design and so forth. We expect that the ideal candidate with a design background will have a technical orientation and experience on skills such as electronic prototyping, coding etc., while the ideal candidate with an engineering background has openness to and ideally experience on creative activities, design research and practice. We appreciate the candidates with a maker mindset and expect applicants to have experience in or willingness to learn crafting and rapid prototyping (using 3D printers & embroidery machines, creating rough prototypes with simple materials etc.). Also for this position, experience in digital interface design and software development is appreciated since the project will possibly have a mobile interface component.

The following qualities are appreciated:

6.   Background in some of the following areas or on a closely related one: Computational Media
Design, Interaction Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Electronics Engineering, Mechanical
Engineering, Computer Science, or related areas to wearables design and smart textiles.
7.   Experience in software design and development.
8.   Prior knowledge of research on wearable interfaces, smart textiles, interaction design and fashion
design.
9.   Experience and/or knowledge in quantitative research methods (including e.g. setting up
experiments, survey research, quantitative data analysis)
10.  Experience in 3D printing and embroidery, understanding of textile materials.
11.  Basic knowledge of passive RFID technologies.

Successful candidates must be pursuing or will be accepted to study towards a doctoral degree in the faculty’s doctoral programme. Please visit the admissions webpage for more information on eligibility requirements.

We offer

Intelligent Clothing Group offers a work environment with state-of-the-art equipment for design, manufacturing and practical testing of textile electronics and body-centric wireless systems. Gamification Group (http://gamification.group) is a multidisciplinary research group including researchers from a very distinct set of backgrounds and studies a wide variety of topics concerning gameful technologies. Tampere University has common-use facilities such as a FabLab (https://sites.tuni.fi/fablabtampere/), user experience and immersive technology laboratories (https://civit.fi).

The position will be filled for a fixed-term period of 1-4 years. The planned starting date is as soon as possible. Please indicate in your application when you are able to start in the position.

The salary will be based on both the job demands and the employee’s personal performance in accordance with the Finnish University Salary System. The position of Doctoral Researcher is placed on the job demand level 2–3 (the demand level chart for the teaching and research staff). A typical starting salary of a Doctoral Researcher is around 2300-2400€ /month.

How to Apply

Please submit your application through our online recruitment system by September 7, 2020  (at 23.59 EEST, GMT+3 / 20.59 UTC).

Applications must include the following documents in a pdf file in English:

•    CV following the TENK template, including the date (or estimated date) of your previous degree.
•    List of publications (if applicable).
•    A free-form statement of interest, describing your interests and expectations.

If you wonder whether your background and interests are suitable, or if you have any more questions, please contact:

Dr. Oğuz Turan Buruk, oguz.buruk@tuni.fi

Image Credit: Adnan Mehmood (Production of a textile antenna from the Intelligent Clothing Group Lab)