[iva] PhD Studentship -- AI for Virtual Reality-based First Response Training

[Ulysses Bernardet]

Applications are invited for a 3-year funded PhD studentship supported by
the School of Engineering and Applied Science (
*https://www2.aston.ac.uk/study/courses/phd-eas*
<https://www2.aston.ac.uk/study/courses/phd-eas>) under the supervision of
Dr Ulysses Bernardet (
*https://research.aston.ac.uk/en/persons/ulysses-bernardet*
<https://research.aston.ac.uk/en/persons/ulysses-bernardet>).

The successful applicant will join a dynamic group working on interactive
virtual human systems and bio-inspired HCI at the Cybernetic Human Lab (
*cs.aston.ac.uk/chl* <cs.aston.ac.uk/chl>).



Aston University Birmingham, UK

School of Engineering and Applied Science

Computer Science

Start July or October 2020



*Project details*

Virtual Reality-based training has become an integral part of education,
e.g. in the form of flight simulators and rehearsal of safety operations
procedures. VR-based training systems that focus on social awareness and
skills are still relatively new. Consequently, they are not well
investigated in terms of their training efficiency, which in turn means
that tailoring the training simulation to individual trainees to achieve
maximum learning effect is difficult.



The objectives of the project are to analyse existing training data to
identify markers of training success and to develop a learning management
system in the form of an AI-based adjustment of difficulty levels. The
difficulty level will be adjusted via the overall situational complexity as
well as the complexity of the social agents the trainee is interacting
with. The latter aspect is of particular interest and directly grounded in
the supervisor's work on Artificial Social Agents.



This PhD project is a collaboration with a regional company that has
developed software for the training of first response staff.



*Knowledge and skills required in applicant *

Background in VR programming and/or background in HCI/psychology. We are
aware that the combination of both skills is unusual, so a strong
background in either and a strong interest in the other will be sufficient
for an application to be considered.



*How to apply*

Details about the application process can be found here:
*https://www2.aston.ac.uk/eas/research/prospective-research-students/how-to-apply*
<https://www2.aston.ac.uk/eas/research/prospective-research-students/how-to-apply>



*Contact information*

For informal enquiries about this project, contact Ulysses Bernardet by
email at *u.bernardet at aston.ac.uk* <u.bernardet at aston.ac.uk>.


-- 
Dr Ulysses Bernardet
Lecturer in Computer Science

cybernetic human lab
cs.aston.ac.uk/chl

School of Engineering & Applied Science
Aston University, Birmingham, UK
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