PhD Studentship @ City, University of London: Understanding and improving the genAI search experience

City, University of London are excited to announce a 3 year full-time funded PhD studentship aimed at understanding and improving the user experience of generative AI-assisted information seeking and retrieval.


About the studentship:
This PhD studentship will involve understanding and improving the user experience of generative AI-assisted information seeking and retrieval by conducting rigorous qualitative or mixed-methods user research.

It will involve conducting research aimed at understanding a key aspect of how users interact with AI-integrated search and discovery environments, such as search engines, and using this understanding to inform the design of these environments by making design recommendations, or by co-designing and evaluating prototype systems with users.

Key aspects of user interaction you could focus on include investigating how to seize important opportunities presented by genAI-assisted information seeking and retrieval, such as augmenting human information synthesis and decision-making skills or sparking creativity and serendipitous information discovery. Alternatively, you could focus on investigating how to reduce important risks, such as spreading mis/disinformation, manipulating peoples' views and decisions and negatively impacting learning by restricting user agency in information synthesis.

This is an opportunity to conduct research of high societal importance and to create strong research impact beyond academia.


Eligibility and requirements:
You should have a postgraduate degree (e.g. MSc, MA) in Human-Computer Interaction, Information Science, or a related discipline (e.g., Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Library Science, Information Retrieval). You should also demonstrate aptitude for original research of societal importance.


Experience:
Essential: You should have experience in...
- Using one or more qualitative data collection approaches, such as interviews, observations, diary studies, ethnographic approaches;
- Using one or more qualitative data analysis approaches, such as Thematic Analysis, Grounded Theory, Interaction Analysis or a general inductive qualitative approach.

Desirable: You should also ideally have experience in...
- Using one or more Qualitative Data Analysis tools to support your analysis (e.g., NVivo, Atlas.Ti, Dovetail, MaxQDA);
- Using findings from your qualitative research to inform the design of digital environments;
- Having published (or demonstrating the aptitude and enthusiasm to publish) high-quality papers in reputable peer-reviewed conferences and journals.


Studentship amount:
Annual tax-free stipend of £21,000 and 50% of tuition fees (Home or Overseas) paid.


More information and to apply:
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DEH871/phd-studentship-understanding-and-improving-the-user-experience-of-generative-ai-assisted-information-seeking-and-retrieval<http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DEH871/phd-studentship-understanding-and-improving-the-user-experience-of-generative-ai-assisted-information-seeking-and-retrieval>


Key dates:
Application deadline: 14th January 2024
Start date: 1st April 2024 or 1st July 2024


Next steps if interested:
Contact Stephann Makri ([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>) to arrange an informal chat

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