The
Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Institute of Acoustics and Speech Communication
for the
Cluster of Excellence “Centre for Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop” (CeTI)
seeks to fill the
Junior Professorship (W1) in Social Affective Touch
at the
earliest possible date, for a limited four-year contract. If the interim evaluation is positive, the employment
contract will be extended to a total of six years.
Evaluation criteria mutually agreed upon when the position is accepted will form the basis of the evaluation
procedures. Essential elements of the evaluation will be the scientific success in the form of subject-relevant and
high-quality publications, successful acquisition of third-party research funds as well as related project management,
promotion of young scientists as well as the development of innovative teaching contents for the field of
“Social Affective Touch” with positively evaluated teaching performances.
Research at CeTI aims at achieving significant breakthroughs for enhancing collaborations between humans and
machines in real, virtual and remote environments. In humans, the social affective dimension of touch conveys
important information about the emotions and intentions of the interaction partner. It is integral to human’s conscious
experience of haptic sensations. On the one hand, such information is important and needs to be recognized
by the machines that collaborate with humans. On the other hand, a subfield of haptic technology also focuses on
the design of devices and systems (e.g., by manipulating force, warmth, softness, or duration) to elicit, enhance,
or modulate the emotion-al state of humans by means of the sense of touch. The field of social affective touch is
highly interdis-ciplinary and crucial for enhancing human-machine interactions. You will cooperate with scientists
from the CeTI, the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering as well as the Faculty of Psychology and contribute
to coordinated third-party research projects. We expect your commitment to engage in the study programs of
the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering or Faculty of Psychology and to perform teaching tasks. Your
teaching tasks will initially comprise four academic hours per week. Your duties include active participation in
academic self-administration.
We are looking for a dedicated young scientist whose research aims at either (i) understanding psychological and
neurocognitive mechanisms of social affective touch or (ii) developing social affective haptic technologies for
human-machine interactions. You should have a clear interest and some experience in researching at the interface
between human processes of social affective touch and technologies of affective haptics. Applicants must fulfil
the employment qualification requirements of § 63 of the Act on the Autonomy of Institutions of Higher Education
in the Free State of Saxony (SächsHSFG). For further info see:
http://tu-dresden.de/vacancy/8420.