HCI & design thinking: re-envisioning child mental health interventions with digital technology

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Dr Slovak’s lab (https://petrslovak.com) at King’s College London (UK) is seeking an exceptional PhD candidate. This is a part of a recently awarded £1.2M UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, where you will have the chance to work with leading HCI and clinical / psychology researchers to re-envision mental health interventions for children with digital technology.

The connection with the fellowship also brings the opportunity to engage and collaborate with a brilliant team of collaborators & mentors (spread across KCL, Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, UCL, NW, Michigan, UW …), supporting the PhD researcher’s networking and professional development.

See:
- https://petrslovak.com/flf for more details on the research area;
- https://petrslovak.com/apply for lab and recruitment info.


— Who are we looking for? —

You will be highly motivated, able to learn & work across disciplines (in particular HCI and mental health), and also have highly developed analytical and design thinking skills. Prior research experience with HCI and/or mental health interventions (publications etc.) is highly desirable. We are looking at potential for creativity, excellence, and drive.

Typical backgrounds of successful candidates are interaction design, human-computer interaction, computer science, mental health / psychology; but we are curious to hear what you can contribute.



— Resources —

Before applying, you might find useful to look at the overview of the current projects (https://petrslovak/research/) as well as read the following two key papers, both with Best Paper Awards:

- Slovák, P., Theofanopoulou, N., Cecchet, A., Cottrell, P., Altarriba Bertran, F., Dagan, E., ... & Isbister, K. (2018). " I just let him cry... Designing Socio-Technical Interventions in Families to Prevent Mental Health Disorders. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2(CSCW), 1-34.

- Slovák, P., Frauenberger, C., & Fitzpatrick, G. (2017, May). Reflective practicum: A framework of sensitising concepts to design for transformative reflection. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2696-2707).


— Pragmatics —

The successful applicant will be based at the Informatics department on London Strand Campus; with a possibility of a visiting appointment at the Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Neuroscience (IoPPN).

The Recruitment page (https://petrslovak.com/apply) has more information on how to apply, what are the fundings streams available, and how to reach out to me to discuss your interest before applying.

** Note that I will not be answering inquiries unless they include the information requested on the website. **


— Eligibility —
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research-courses/computer-science-research-mphil-phd

Truly exceptional international candidates might be eligible for funding as well, assuming they will receive one of the few competitively awarded scholarships in the department. See https://petrslovak.com/apply/#apply-phds for more details.