2011-02-18: Job: PhD position on Sleep Quality Measurement and Visualization, Eindhoven Univ. of Tech. and Philips Research, (Deadline: February 27)

PhD position on Subjective Sleep Quality Measurement and Visualization

Applications are invited for a PhD position at the Department of Industrial Design of the Eindhoven University of Technology (Technische Universiteit Eindhoven) and Philips Research, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

• Deadline for applications: 27/02/2011
• Reference number: V51.1313

Technische Universiteit Eindhoven

Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e) is one of Europe's leading research universities. The Eindhoven area, in the southern part of the Netherlands, is one of Europe's top 'innovation ecosystems', with many high-tech companies and institutes. TU/e is intertwined with many of these companies and institutes, and research at TU/e is characterized by a combination of academic excellence and industrial relevance. Culturally, the Netherlands is a very interesting part of Europe. Historic cities such as Amsterdam, The Hague, Maastricht, Brussels, and Antwerp are all within easy reach from Eindhoven.

Philips Research

Philips Research as part of Royal Philips Electronics, is one of the world's largest corporate research organizations, employing about 1,800 people worldwide. Philips Research develops new technologies and investigates potential growth areas for Philips, in the areas of Lighting, Healthcare, and Lifestyle.

Project description

Many people suffer from a lack of sleep. This immediately adversely affects ones mood, attention and ability to concentrate. This project does the scientific groundwork for a home sleep monitoring solution. By doing unobtrusive physiological measurements during the night, such a system can inform people about the characteristics and quality of their personal sleep. Providing people with insight in their sleep means empowering them to improve the quality of their sleep. The project develops a sleep quality model for describing the characteristics of a person’s sleep in a way that, on the one hand, is intuitively understandable and corresponds with one’s subjective sleep quality experience, and on the other hand, can be objectively assessed from unobtrusively acquired physiological data. The project will deliver algorithms for automatic sleep quality assessment in combination with a deep understanding of objective and subjective sleep quality measures and their relationships. Two PhD students will be working closely together on the project conducting fundamental scientific research, one having a signal processing/data mining background focusing on objective sleep quality measures, the other one having a psychology or psycho-physiology background focusing on the assessment of subjective sleep quality.

For Philips, Home Sleep Monitoring can lead to new product / service offerings for its Healthcare as well as its Consumer Lifestyle businesses. For the TU/e, the project strengthens its ‘health’ theme, which is one of the three major focal points where research will concentrate across faculties in the next few years, thus putting it at the forefront of research in healthcare and well being technology at an international level.

Job description

The Phd candidate will have the following responsibilities:

• Develop a method for assessing subjective sleep quality per night. An important step is the identification of how the underlying sleep experience factors influence the overall sleep quality feeling. A mixed-methods approach will be taken in which design research methodology is combined with standard psychometric techniques.
• From studying scientific and medical sleep literature, propose ingredients for the sleep quality model that reflect people’s sleep quality experience.
• Develop a conceptual framework of how people intuitively express themselves around sleep and relate those concepts to terminology deployed in scientific and medical sleep literature. This includes suitable presentation techniques for these sleep concepts.
• Work towards a PhD thesis around subjective sleep quality assessment

The project is a collaborative effort of TU/e and Philips Research. You will be appointed at TU/e. For a large part of your time, you will be embedded at Philips Research allowing close interaction with their sleep researchers. Together with the other PhD student you will form an enthusiastic team.

Requirements

The PhD student sought will need to have an affinity with studying user experiences and user system interaction, preferably with a background in psychology / psycho-physics. Candidates for this position should have a Master’s degree in a related area with excellent grades (First Class Honors or equivalent) a strong basis in research methodology and in behavioral research, along with a demonstrated ability to think out of the box and to link theory to applications. Candidates should be pro-active and entrepreneurial, and should have a ‘hands-on’ attitude. Other key attributes include good analytic, experimental and programming skills, excellent social and team working skills, and an ability to turn chaos into order.

What we offer

This PhD position involves a temporary (4-year) appointment as a staff member of the department of Industrial Design at the TU/e, with internationally competitive salary and social benefits, full exemption of tuition fees, and a unique opportunity to simultaneously build an industrial track record. Gross monthly salaries are in accordance with the Collective Labor Agreement (CAO) and are at least € 2,042 gross per month and at most € 2,612 gross per month. We offer an attractive package of fringe benefits (including excellent work facilities, child care, and excellent sports facilities).

Contact

Prof.dr. Panos Markopoulos, TU/e: p.markopoulos@tue.nl Dr.ir. Reinder Haakma, Philips Research: Reinder.Haakma@philips.com

Please, send in your application (CV and motivation letter) by mail, February 27, 2011.

by Panos Markopoulos via CHI-JOBS mailing list