Personalising Information Visualisation in an Ageing Society
Start date
1st October 2023
Award(s)
1 fully funded 3-year PhD studentship, Department of Informatics - Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences & IoPPN
Project
A funded PhD opportunity is available for a collaborative project between the London Centre for Urban Science Progress (CUSP) in the Department of Informatics and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IOPPN). The project will combine empirical and theoretical approaches to develop tools to effectively convey complex visual information for example weather, pollution or hazard measures inclusively across the adult lifespan. Cognitive and visual perception experiments which include eye tracking will be carried out at the IOPPN on healthy participants while data analysis and model development will be based at CUSP at the Strand. The project will be supervised jointly by Prof. Nicolas Holliman (CUSP) and Dr. Andrew Meso (IOPPN).
Candidates
Candidates should have an interest in developing digital tools for presenting information, and in better understanding how such tools might interact with human visual-cognition processes. We will consider applicants from a range of scientific disciplines (BSc/MSci/MSc) and knowledge of cognitive experiments, data analysis, coding and mathematical/quantitative tools are all desirable.
Project (brief) technical summary:
Among the key issues in visualization is how we personalise visualizations, to communicate to people if their perceptual or cognitive abilities are different. This is particularly an issue when communicating critical information for decision makers, whether at national or personal level.
One of the key issues in perception and cognition is the effect of age. As we grow older, there is an increasing body of scientific evidence about changes that impact our visual abilities. In the proposed research we probe potential changes in signal to noise levels of perceptual representation and aim to study the way in which visualizations could be automatically altered to adapt for a viewers’ personal abilities.
In this proposal we specifically seek to improve the scientific evidence base for visualizations and to add to evidenced knowledge of what works in visualization. The main contributions are likely to be in algorithms and the verification of visualization approaches.
More information: The search for a candidate will now remain open until early May (deadline Friday 5th) with interviews held in mid-May with a view to commence in the Autumn, 2023. To discuss the position informally and get more information, contact Dr. Meso (andrew.meso@kcl.ac.uk) or Prof. Holliman (nicolas.holliman@kcl.ac.uk).
Supervisors
Prof. Nicolas Holliman (NMES) & Dr Andrew Meso (IoPPN)
Entry requirements
Applicants should have (or be expected to obtain) a Bachelors degree with 2:1 honours (or Overseas equivalent). A 2:2 degree may be considered only where applicants also offer a Masters with Merit.
Award types and eligibility
Students will be fully funded for three years full time, to include home tuition fees (studentship not available to Overseas applicants), annual stipend and some research and travel costs. Overseas applicants may apply but will need to cover the difference in fees.
To be treated as a Home student, candidates must meet one of the following criteria:
- A UK national (meeting residency requirements)
- Settled status
- Pre-settled status (meeting residency requirements)
- Indefinite leave to remain or enter
Further information
More information on the department and the programme is available at the departmental prospectus page here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/informatics/research/cusp-london and https://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/areas/neuroimaging-research-mphil-phd
About CUSP (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/informatics/research/cusp-london)
About the IoPPN (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/about/index.aspx)
Studying at the IoPPN (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/study/index.aspx)
Research degrees at the IoPPN (link to https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/study/postgraduate-research-programmes)
How to apply
Applicants must complete and submit an online admissions application, via the admissions portal by midnight (23:59 GMT) on Friday 5th May 2023. The application deadline has been extended to accommodate applications in progress, but will not be extended beyond 05 May.
On the ‘Choosing a programme’ page, please select Computer Science Research MPhil/PhD (Full-time).
In your application, you will be asked to include:
- Academic Transcripts – where applicable, academic transcripts must be submitted with the online admissions application
- Details of your qualifications (you will need to attach copies)
- Details of previous employment - please include your CV
- A personal statement describing your interests and why you wish to apply for this project. Please include this as an attachment rather than using the text box.
- Academic References – all admissions applications require one supporting reference. If the applicant is relying on thier referees to submit a reference directly to the College after they have submitted thier admissions application, then the applicant must ensure that (1) their chosen referee is made aware of the funding deadline (i.e. 7 days from application deadline) and (2) that the reference needs to be sent from an institutional email address.
In the Funding section, please tick box 5 and include the following reference: AM-CUSP-IOPPN-23
Please note there is no need to complete the Research Proposal section in your application as the project has already been set. You are welcome to email supervisors Dr. Meso (andrew.meso@kcl.ac.uk) or Prof. Holliman (nicolas.holliman@kcl.ac.uk) for more information regarding the project and studentship. .
If you have any queries regarding the application process, please contact the Education support team at ioppn.pgr@kcl.ac.uk.
References must be received by the deadline for the applicant to be eligible.
Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.
Closing date
Friday 5th May 2023
Interviews
Mid May 2023