[ecoop-info] Open Post-Doc position (<10 years of research experience) at METU CogSci

[Cengiz Acarturk]

Open Post-Doc position (<10 years of research experience) (M/F) is 
available at the Middle East Technical University, Informatics 
Institute, Cognitive Science Program, Ankara, Turkey

[Sorry for multiple postings]

Middle East Technical University (METU) Informatics Institute, Cognitive 
Science Program (Ankara, Turkey) has an available full-time post-doc 
position for the period of 24 months. The candidate should have less 
than 10 years of research & development experience and with top 
performance in the area of cognitive science, computer science, 
multimodal interaction and Human Computer Interaction. Experience in 
conducting experimental work with eye tracking and haptics is welcome.

METU is ranked 85th in the top 400 universities list of Times Higher 
Education (THE) World University Rankings 2014-2015. It is the first and 
only Turkish university ranked among the top 100 universities. METU was 
already the first and only university in the top 100 list of World 
Reputation Rankings in 2012, 2013 and 2014. METU provides a fertile 
research infrastructure for researchers from different countries. The 
candidate is expected to participate in a team of researchers at the 
Cognitive Science Program of METU Informatics Institute, which has been 
developing in-house natural and multimodal interaction technologies for 
citizens.

The position is available within the European project “IRIS: Towards 
Natural Interaction and Communication” (Marie Curie Industry-Academia 
Partnerships and Pathways program, FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IAPP), a 
collaborative R&D project with Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish academic 
and industrial partners. The project has received funding from the 
European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological 
development and demonstration under grant agreement nr 610986 
(http://iris-interaction.eu/).

The IRIS project focuses on senior citizens and citizens with speech 
impairments. By adopting universal design principles, the candidate will 
contribute to the development of the most appropriate mixture of user 
input (gaze, speech, silent speech, gesture, touch, biometry) and output 
modalities (animated characters with personalized synthetic voices, 
pictograms), in real settings and within immersive virtual reality 
experiments depicting visual and aural elements. In these experiments, 
the candidate will measure the gaze of the participants by eye tracking 
and arousal state of the participants by biometric sensing (heart beat 
rate, electrodermal activation, electromyography of the face, facial 
expression) where applicable, aiming at classifying their emotions 
activated during the experiments, via suitable machine learning 
approaches, towards the improvement of the user interaction experience.

The position has the following conditions:
• This position is full-time for 24 months. Ideally, the successful 
candidate will commence employment in middle 2015 in Ankara, Turkey.
• At the time of recruitment by METU, the candidate must not have 
resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc) in 
Turkey for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to 
recruitment. Short stays such as holidays and/or compulsory national 
service are not taken into account.
• Salary (before tax): €57 564.00 plus €10 922.20 for mobility allowance 
per year (gross amount in line with EC Marie Curie salary rates). 
Average Turkish income tax rate of 42%
• Applicable laws and regulations follows the European Commission 
criteria for recruitment for this type of funding under Marie Curie 
action under the Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways (IAPP): 
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/fp7/calls/fp7-people-2013-iapp.html

The position is open until filled. Those who are interested should send 
the detailed CV, with the relevant documents in attachment by email to 
acarturk at metu.edu.tr. We will only consider electronic submissions.

Cengiz Acartürk, PhD
Assistant Professor
Cognitive Science Program, Informatics Institute
Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara Turkey.
Tel: +90 312 2107704
www.acarturk.net