The interAction research group at the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science (DISI) at the University of Trento, Italy offers a scholarship for a PhD position. We are looking for a talented student enthusiast about Interaction Design and excited to work in a multidisciplinary team. The successful student will be supervised by prof. Antonella De Angeli and prof. Vincenzo D’Andrea.
Possible research areas include but are not limited to:
Public design for social innovation
Inclusive design
Aesthetics and interactive art
Musical interface design
Interested students are encouraged to send their CV along with a statement of research interest, publications (if any), a motivation letter, and the name of three possible referees to morreale@disi.unitn.it by May, 17th.
About interAction.
interAction is an international and interdisciplinary research group composed by psychologists, computer scientists, sociologists, cognitive scientists, anthropologists, artists, musicians, and designers with a common interest in the design of interactive systems. The interAction group designs and implements public, inclusive and aesthetic interactive artefacts and analyses technology through sociotechnical lenses, with special emphasis on ethical and societal challenges related to digital technologies. The research pursued by interAction is mainly focused on digital commons, methods for public design, active ageing, childhood digital literacy, territorial care services, smart cities, musical interface design, interactive and computational art, and video game design. In practical terms, the group blends case studies and theoretical analysis with empirical answers based both on scenarios of use and design solutions. In this process, technology is not considered as a goal by itself, but as a powerful tool to address themes which have an impact on people and society. This approach is heavily influenced by participatory design, where people do not only take an active role in the design process but also have decision-making power.
The interAction group was founded in 2014 within the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science (DISI) of the University of Trento, a medium-size university located in the autonomous Italian region of Trentino/Alto Adige. DISI has 1200 students, 45 professors, 91 researchers, 190 Ph.D. students and 16 administrative assistants. In the last ten years, DISI has been constantly ranking among the top Italian Departments based on internationalization, research productivity and capability to attract funding. Since 2008, DISI has worked on about 280 European, National and Local projects, attracting around 28 million euros of research funding. Since 2010, the department is part of the Italian node of the European Institute of Technology (EIT).
Informal enquiries are also welcome and may be addressed to Dr. Fabio Morreale on morreale@disi.unitn.it