https://neu.peopleadmin.com/postings/62022

The Serious Games Research Network at Macquarie University (in Sydney, Australia) is looking to attract international PhD students interested in taking part in Macquarie’s Cotutelle and Joint Phd programs.

DOCTORAL RESEARCHER/POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW/PROJECT RESEARCHER
(GAMIFICATION), 2-5 POSITIONS

Gamification Group of Tampere University is seeking several researchers for
positions ranging from 2-5 years on levels of PhD candidate, Postdoctoral
researcher or project researcher. We welcome applications with any research
foci related to and around of the research of the Gamification Group related
to the gamefulness of technology, society, culture and economy from any
scholarly discipline. In addition, however, we are especially seeking
candidates with the following research focus (please see more elaborate
descriptions below).

- Wearable (gaming) technology
- Gamification and logistics and related security
- Gamification, datafication & visualization of academic publishing and
impact (postdoc only)

Gamification Group (GG) is a multidisciplinary research group that examines
the gamefulness of technology, society, culture and economy, and operates
within two universities in Finland: Faculty of Information Technology and
Communication Sciences at Tampere University and Faculty of Humanities at
University of Turku. The group is led by the Professor of Gamification, Dr.
Juho Hamari. GG is also a part of the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture
Studies and University Consortium of Pori. These positions are administrably
related to Tampere University.

Gamification Group’s research covers several topics such as gamification and
gameful experience, games, game-based learning, persuasive technologies,
virtual reality and wearables, social networking services, online video
streaming, esports, sharing economy, crowdsourcing and virtual economies. GG
has published several seminal empirical, theoretical and meta-analytical
scholarly articles from the perspectives of user/consumer behavior,
human-computer interaction, game studies and information systems science.

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. The position
“Gamification, datafication & visualization of academic publishing and
impact (postdoc only) includes approximately 25% of university management
activities related to mining, analyzing and visualizing the scholarly output
of the faculty as well as possibly working as an adjutant of the vice-dean.
The goal, however, is that these activities would be synergistically linked
with the research of the candidate.

=== Wearable (gaming) technology

This position will focus on wearables and game design. The accepted
candidate will work on designing, developing and researching wearables by
focusing on its playful features and will explore a wide range of topics in
which wearables can be used such as virtual reality environments, digital
games, mobile games and gamification applications.

The following qualities are appreciated:
- Background in some of the following areas or on a closely related one:
Electronics Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science,
Industrial Product Design, Interaction Design, Game design or related areas
to game technologies and design.
- Prior knowledge of research on wearables, virtual reality, game design and
game research.
- Experience and/or knowledge in quantitative research methods (including
e.g. setting up experiments, survey research, quantitative data analysis)
- Experience in game design / HCI design / web design.
- Experience in prototyping, integration of sensors, working with maker
tools such as Arduino, Rasberry Pi.

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 have 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, creating rough prototypes with simple
materials etc.)

=== Gamification and logistics and related security

The candidates will work on research area of gamification in logistics and
related security. The following qualities are appreciated:
- Methods: Experience in running field experiments, using (psychometric)
survey -based research methods
- Design and design research: Experience from designing and creating mobile
and web applications/games
- Prior research/study background in logistics -related field, computer
science, applied psychology
- High and demonstrated ability to work in collaboration with the industry
- Capability to communicate in Finnish is considered a plus

Gamification, datafication & visualization of academic publishing and impact
(postdoc only)

The following qualities are considered especial strengths:
- Abilities to pool, crawl, mine data from different digital sources and
create databases as well as create reports and visualizations from data
- Abilities to use different methods of data analysis including mathematical
and semantic approaches
- Abilities to administer (psychometric) surveys and conduct related data
analyses
- Prior research background in or in combination of library / information
science / computer science / (motivational) psychology of work
- General good level of understanding of academic publishing, impact and its
systems
- Capability to communicate in Finnish is considered a plus but not
mandatory

All of the positions start as soon as possible. The positions can range from
2-5 years depending on the mutual negotiation, fit and other factors. The
salary will be based on both the job demand level and the employee’s
personal performance in accordance with the Finnish University Salary
System. According to the criteria applied to teaching and research staff,
the position of the Doctoral Researcher is placed on the job demand level
2-4 depending on the advancement of the thesis, Postdoctoral Researcher on
level 5-6 and Project Researcher on level 2-4. In addition, employees will
receive performance-based salary.

How to apply
Applications must be submitted as soon as possible, latest by 15 May (at
23:59 EET) through the electronic application system of Tampere University
(Apply for the job). The positions are filled as soon as possible.
Applicants should enclose with their application a CV, list of publications,
and a free form cover/motivation letter previous projects that demonstrate
candidates’ ability to produce working prototypes (portfolio, web site or a
list of links to related projects are preferable) and other documents that
may influence the filling of the position.

Applications must include the following attachments written in English and
preferably in PDF format:
1. Letter of motivation, including a description of research interests (max.
2 pages)
2. Full curriculum vitae listing all relevant experiences (Please see CV
template)
3. List of publications
4. Indication of which position the candidate is primarily interested in: 1)
wearable gaming technology, 2) gamification of logistics, 3) gamification,
datafication and visualization of academic activity or 4) any topic around
related to research areas of the Gamification Group (e.g. gamification,
games, VR/AR/MR, serious games, esports, streaming, etc.).

Please note! Before applying, you are encouraged to contact Juho Hamari
(juho.hamari@tuni.fi) (and Oğuz Turan Buruk (oguz.buruk@tuni.fi) in relation
to the wearable technology -position) if you have any questions about the
positions. Not receiving a timely response to queries does not imply
unfitness of the candidate.

For more information, please contact: Professor Juho Hamari,
juho.hamari@tuni.fi, +358 50 318 6861

Applications are still open for PhD positions at RPI starting Fall
2019.  There are several programs relevant to games, including Cognitive
Science, Computer Science and Electronic Arts.  The Electronic Arts PhD
is a unique practice-based PhD, that encompasses multiple disciplines
including new media, bio art, film, performance, games, VR, software
art, social practice, sound art and music composition.

All PhD students at RPI are fully funded through teaching
assistantships, research assistantships, or fellowships.  Links to these
three programs and to the admissions site are below. Deadline is Friday
January 18.

http://www.arts.rpi.edu/pl/doctor-philosophy-electronic-arts

http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/pl/phd-cognitive-science

https://science.rpi.edu/computer-science/programs/graduate/phd

https://admissions.rpi.edu/graduate/masters-and-phd-applicants

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence (IGGI) offers up to 12 fully-funded PhD studentships to start September 2019 at the University of York and Queen Mary, University of London.

What is IGGI
IGGI is an exciting opportunity for you to undertake a four-year PhD in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence, working with companies and world-leading academics in games.

Currently have 60 students conducting interdisciplinary research in areas such as:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to create interesting, fun, believable game agents,
- interaction and user experience design for games,
- data science to understand player behaviour and psychology,
- applied games for learning, wellbeing, and science
- game audio, graphics and animation
- computational creativity: procedural content generation for audio, graphics, gameplay, …
- emotion, immersion, and motivation in games.

IGGI is a collaboration between the University of York, Goldsmiths and Queen Mary, University of London, and the University of Essex. The programme trains PhD researchers who will become the next generation of leaders in research, design, development and entrepreneurship in digital games. They have a diverse group of students and encourage diverse applicants. They are awaiting a final funding decision, which will give us 12 studentships available for 2019/20 entry (starting September 2019), which will fund full fees (at a Home/ EU rate) plus a tax-free living stipend, for a 4-year PhD programme. Could you join our large and growing group of games researchers in the world’s largest games research programme?

Why apply to IGGI
You’ll receive focused skills training from a range of academic research leaders, covering topics including Games Development, Games Design and Research Skills as well as a range of optional topics in areas such as AI, HCI, and design.

You’ll also learn through teamwork and inspiring events such as:
- the IGGI Game Jam, a 48 hour game development challenge as part of the Global Game Jam, enhancing your skills in game design, development, and teamwork;
- the IGGI Conference, showcasing student research alongside industry and academic speakers;
- student-led events such as the IGGI Game Creator’s Club, research seminars, games evenings.

IGGI gives you the opportunity to contribute directly to the future of games. You will have the opportunity to undertake industrial placements during the IGGI programme, giving you first-hand experience of the games industry. These placements will contribute to your research, ensuring its relevance, as well as giving you the skills needed to succeed in a career in the games industry or games research. Our students have completed, or are currently on, placements with partner companies such as Sony Interactive Entertainment, Bossa Studios, Google, Bloomberg, PROWLER.io, Media Molecule, BT, Splash Damage, and MindArk. Other partners include organisations such as Electronic Arts, Creative Assembly, Rebellion, Revolution, AI Factory and over 50 games companies and organisations which use games in creative ways (see http://www.iggi.org.uk/industry-partners/)

How to apply
An IGGI application should consist of your statement of planned research, proposed supervisor(s), your CV and a covering letter explaining your motivation and suitability for the IGGI programme. You will also be asked for evidence of your programming skills during the application process, either through your qualifications, previous employment or examples of games you have developed.

You can contact potential supervisors directly (see http://www.iggi.org.uk/supervisors/ for a list), or contact us at the email address below and they can help you to choose a principal supervisor from York or Queen Mary based on your interests and background.

IGGI students are a diverse group, and admission judgements are made exclusively on the basis of experience and potential to do excellent research and contribute to IGGI’s goals. Especially welcoming applications from female and minority ethnic candidates as well as other groups that are under-represented in areas related to IGGI.

Expecting substantial competition for IGGI studentships and we encourage good students to submit applications as early as possible. The deadline for applications is 23:59 (GMT) on Thursday 31st January 2019. Interviews will take place at Queen Mary University of London on Friday 15th March 2019.

Please email your CV, covering letter, supervisor information and statement of planned research to apply@iggi.org.uk. Enquiries should be sent to the same email address. The deadline for applications is 31st January 2019, but they strongly encourage you to get in touch with potential supervisors before then in order to craft the best possible application. For full details, see http://www.iggi.org.uk/apply.

Fully funded Ph.D. opportunities in immersive experiences for earth and geographical sciences

Recruiting Ph.D. candidates to work in a dynamic team focusing on immersive technologies (augmented, mixed, and virtual reality) and their application across the academic spectrum. ChoroPhronesis (part of Penn State’s Geography Department) is offering a vibrant transdisciplinary research environment that is addressing a range of topics that witness transformative changes in the light of developments in immersive technologies. Examples include:

•         Visualizing and experiencing climate change
•         Immersive analytics for environmental decision-making;
•         Immersive learning environments such as virtual field trips
•         Immersive storytelling;
•         3D modeling and design;
•         Foundations of immersive technologies.
•         Immersive experiences and place
•         Digital humanities

More information about potential projects can be accessed through: http://sites.psu.edu/chorophronesis/projects/.

Interested candidates should apply through the department website (https://www.geog.psu.edu/) asap, ideally before 12/14/18 (there is some flexibility). Please contact Dr. Alexander Klippel (klippel@psu.edu) for questions and further information.

In the context of a research infrastructure project, a scholarship is offered for a PhD student in Computer Science to join the multidisciplinary research collaboration between UGent (ΔiaLing and LT³) and UHasselt (Expertise Centre for Digital Media). The PhD research topic is part of a Hercules (FWO) project (see description below), and focuses on design and realisation of “Games with a purpose / Serious games” with applications in the domain of Spanish dialectology and Natural Language Processing.

The envisaged starting date is February 1^st, 2019.

Description of the Hercules project:

The study of dialectal microvariation of Spanish spoken in Spain has until recently mainly focused on lexical and phonetic features. The morphosyntax of these dialects, on the contrary, remains largely unexplored, despite the recent surge in interest in dialect grammars. This is due to the lack of large annotated dialectal corpora. This project aims to fill this lacuna and will create the first morphosyntactically annotated and parsed corpus of the European Spanish dialects. This dialect corpus will be designed in a geographically balanced way and its material will proceed from the COSER corpus (Corpus Oral y Sonoro del Español Rural ‘Audible Corpus of Spoken Rural Spanish’; www.corpusrural.es), which is the largest collection of oral data in the Spanish-speaking world. As transcribing and annotating are expensive and labour-intensive, this project takes a collaborative game-based approach to building the parsed corpus of European Spanish dialects. In other words, a crowdsourced game will be built through which members of the public contribute to the co-creation of the parsed corpus by providing annotations in the context of a game.

Requirements:

• The candidate has a Master of Science degree in Computer Science or Civil Engineer/Computer Science (or equivalent).
• The candidate should have outstanding academic skills, and a clear interest in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research.
• The candidate has extensive knowledge and a great interest in software development, because software development of gaming applications is done throughout the research trajectory.
• The candidate should be able to work independently as well as in a multidisciplinary team, and will be guided by advisors with a computer science/HCI background (UHasselt) and with a background in language studies / linguistics (UGent). Therefore, the candidate will spend time in both host universities.

Additional elements:

• It is a strong advantage if the candidate has received training and/or gained experience in Human-Computer Interaction topics related to end-user interaction and motivation, user-centred design approaches, prototyping and evaluation techniques.
• Experience developing applications for mobile devices as well as game development is a plus. A possible category of games that is envisioned in the research are 2D online games.
• Due to the application domain of the project and the activities to perform during the PhD trajectory, having advanced knowledge of the Spanish language is highly desirable.

The successful candidate is appointed for two years, and the scholarship is prolonged for another two years after a positive evaluation of the candidate’s research trajectory.

How to apply:

The application in English should include

• a motivation letter, summarizing the candidate’s background and capabilities, and describing his/her motivation for this position
• attested copies of education certificates, and a list of master courses with the grades obtained
• an extensive CV
• contact information (e-mail) of potential referees

Applications are to be sent by e-mail to Prof. Dr Miriam Bouzouita (Miriam.Bouzouita@UGent.be) and Dr Gustavo Rovelo gustavo.roveloruiz@uhasselt.be. Application deadline: January 7^th, 2019.

Contact persons for more information:

• For general information about the Hercules project: Prof. Dr Miriam Bouzouita (Principal Investigator): Miriam.Bouzouita@UGent.be;
• For specifications about this post: Prof. Dr Karin Coninx karin.coninx@uhasselt.be and Dr Gustavo Rovelo gustavo.roveloruiz@uhasselt.be

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence (IGGI) offers up to 12 fully-funded PhD studentships to start September 2019 at the University of York and Queen Mary, University of London.

# What is IGGI #

IGGI is an exciting opportunity for you to undertake a four-year PhD in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence, working with top games companies and world-leading academics in games research. We currently have 60 students conducting interdisciplinary research in areas such as:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to create interesting, fun, believable game agents,
• interaction and user experience design for games,
• ML and data science to understand player behaviour and psychology,
• using games for learning and wellbeing,
• game audio, graphics and animation,
• games with a purpose,
• computational creativity and procedural content generation,
• emotion and immersion in games,
• AI-assisted game design and testing.

IGGI is a collaboration between the University of York, Goldsmiths and Queen Mary, University of London, and the University of Essex. The programme trains PhD researchers who will become the next generation of leaders in research, design, development and entrepreneurship in digital games. We have a diverse group of students and encourage diverse applicants. We are awaiting a final funding decision (expected December 2018), which will give us 12 studentships available for 2019/20 entry (starting September 2019), which will fund full fees (at a Home/ EU rate) plus a tax-free living stipend, for a 4-year PhD programme. Could you join our large and growing group of games researchers in the world’s largest games research programme?

# Why apply to IGGI #

You’ll receive focused skills training from a range of academic research leaders, covering topics including Games Development, Games Design and Research Skills as well as a range of optional topics in areas such as AI, HCI, graphics, audio and design.
You’ll also learn through teamwork and inspiring events such as:

• the IGGI Game Jam, a 48 hour game development challenge as part of the Global Game Jam, enhancing your skills in game design, development, and teamwork;
• the IGGI Conference, showcasing student research alongside industry and academic speakers;
• student-led events such as the IGGI Game Creator’s Club, research seminars, games evenings.

IGGI gives you the opportunity to contribute directly to the future of games. You will have the opportunity to undertake industrial placements during the IGGI programme, giving you first-hand experience of the games industry. These placements will contribute to your research, ensuring its relevance, as well as giving you the skills needed to succeed in a career in the games industry or games research. Our students have completed, or are currently on, placements with partner companies such as Sony Interactive Entertainment, Bossa Studios, Google, Bloomberg, PROWLER.io, Media Molecule, BT, Splash Damage, and MindArk. Other partners include organisations such as Electronic Arts, Creative Assembly, Rebellion, Revolution, AI Factory and over 50 games companies and organisations which use games in creative ways (see http://www.iggi.org.uk/industry-partners/)

Your research work with partners like these will advance the creation of more fun and profitable games that exploit research advances, and help to increase the use of games as tools for research in behavioural science and for societal benefit.

# How to Apply #

If funded, we will have 12 studentships to award to outstanding students which cover fees and an annual tax-free stipend of £14,777 (plus London weighting if studying at Queen Mary) for four years (at 2018/19 rates – this is likely to increase for September 2019 starters). Even if not funded we will have more than four standard PhD studentships, though we are hopeful following positive reviews and a positive final interview.

An IGGI application should consist of your statement of planned research, proposed supervisor(s), your CV and a covering letter explaining your motivation and suitability for the IGGI programme. You will also be asked for evidence of your programming skills during the application process, either through your qualifications, previous employment or examples of games you have developed.

You can contact potential supervisors directly (see http://www.iggi.org.uk/supervisors/ for a list), or contact us at the email address below and we can help you to choose a principal supervisor from York or Queen Mary based on your interests and background.
IGGI students are a diverse group, and admission judgements are made exclusively on the basis of experience and potential to do excellent research and contribute to IGGI’s goals. We especially welcome applications from female and minority ethnic candidates as well as other groups that are under-represented in areas related to IGGI.

We expect substantial competition for IGGI studentships and we encourage good students to submit applications as early as possible. The deadline for applications is 23:59 (GMT) on Thursday 31st January 2019. Interviews will take place at Queen Mary University of London on Friday 15th March 2019.

Please email your CV, covering letter, supervisor information and statement of planned research to apply@iggi.org.uk. Enquiries should be sent to the same email address. The deadline for applications is 31st January 2019, but we strongly encourage you to get in touch with potential supervisors before then in order to craft the best possible application. For full details, see http://www.iggi.org.uk/apply.