Associate Professor or Senior Lecturer, Human Computer Interaction (Applied Computing)

School of Computing and Digital Technology

Digital Media Technology (DMT) at Birmingham City University is a dynamic and exciting department of world-leading academic research and award-winning teaching excellence. We are located within the School of Computing and Digital Technology at our modern £300M campus in the heart of Birmingham - a thriving, vibrant, and inspiring learning community which has recently embarked on a programme of extensive expansion funded by substantial long-term investments.  

Our Digital Media Technology Lab (DMT Lab) https://www.bcu.ac.uk/computing/research/digital-media-technology is a world-class research lab with a team of multidisciplinary research staff who are active across four core research domains:  Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Graphics and Vision, Sound and Music Analysis, and Broadcast systems. The DMT Lab’s research achieves global impact and is funded via EPSRC, AHRC, Horizon 2020, Innovate UK and organisations such as Google, Adobe, Facebook/Meta and Microsoft. We also pride ourselves on excellence in knowledge exchange and have one of the largest corpora of live Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programmes within the University.   

The DMT Department also leads a popular and successful MSc User Experience Design course that directly aligns with our research and knowledge exchange expertise. More widely, we lead courses ranging from Computer Games Technology and Visual Effects to Digital Film Production, Sound Engineering, Music Technology, and Digital Media Computing. The Department’s teaching excellence was recently acknowledged through being awarded the Best Educational Institution from the TIGA games industry awards. Since 2023, the Department moved into the new state-of-art STEAMHouse building (https://steamhouse.org.uk/the-building/), which will bolster the interface between our academic programmes and local/national industry for our students. STEAMhouse also presents new research facilities, spaces, and labs that further strengthen and enhance our ambitious research vision. 

The Opportunity

We are seeking a world-class academic at the Senior Lecturer or Associate Professor grade to join our research and teaching team. You should possess a proven excellence in research and teaching aligned to the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). You will have evidenced experience of world leading research outputs including experience of attracting research funding and producing high impact publications. We are specifically interested in academics with proven technical excellence and who can make significant contributions to our research outputs and academic taught portfolio of courses.

Duties and Responsibilities 

For Senior Lecturer

• Lead the development of high-quality research activity, culminating in impact driven outputs in world-class reputable journals and conference proceedings (Q1 and CORE A*).
• Develop pathways for income generation via successful bids and enterprise partnerships.
• Lead supervision of doctoral students.
• Teaching as a member of the Digital Media Technology team on their portfolio of courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
• Develop excellent and innovative teaching materials which support students to exceed in their respective domains.
• Ensure the efficient delivery of teaching programmes in accordance with the University’s strategy, policy and procedures.
• Design and implement effective assessment strategies, conduct marking in alignment with university standards and practices, and provide constructive feedback to students.
• Lead on industry partnerships to further enhance the DMT Lab’s international authority in research and academic practice.

For Associate Professor 

All the above and including

• Management, leadership and direction of research teams/groups to build authority and expertise around a particular technical specialism.
• Lead strategies and the development of high-quality research outputs in high impact journals and conference proceedings (in collaboration with colleagues in DMT Lab).
• Lead and develop strategies for successful income generation via strong collaborations and partnerships to secure research and enterprise funding.
• Lead on strategies focused on the design, development and implementation of a best-in-class portfolio of courses within the DMT Department.
• Management, administration, and development of the course provision within the Department.
• Mentor and support staff within the DMT Department.

Skills and Experience  

For Senior Lecturer

Essential 

• Hold a PhD in a computer science discipline (i.e., HCI, or a related applied technical computing subject).
• Have demonstrable experience in research output generation via publications in leading (Q1 and CORE A*) conferences and journals.
• Possess demonstrable experience of successful research and enterprise income generation.
• Possess excellent working knowledge of the technical toolsets which underpin your domain (e.g., frameworks, software languages, hardware infrastructures and systems) alongside a clear appreciation and expertise of experimental design and statistical analysis (quantitative/qualitative). 
• Have proven and demonstrable excellence in teaching at a higher education level.
• Have excellent teamwork and interpersonal communication skills.
• Hold the ability to be adaptable to the ever developing and changing academic landscape of HCI.

 Desirable 

• Have obtained, or be clearly eligible for, Senior Fellow status under the Higher Education Academy’s Professional Standards Framework.
• Have demonstrable experience of designing and leading courses or academic programmes in a Higher Education environment.
• Experience of HCI in an international industry context.

For Associate Professor 

All the above points and including

Essential 

• Have evidenced ability to lead and develop programmes of research and teaching.
• Possess proven experience in mentoring and supporting research and academic teams and experience of providing guidance regarding staff personal development and output pathways.
• Hold experience of defining and leading on world leading research strategies which achieve income and enterprise activity targets.
• Have a proven track record of successful networking and cross-disciplinary/industry collaboration to support teaching and research.

 Desirable 

• Possess a proven track record of attracting significant externally funded research funding and partnering in a chosen field of interest.
• Have experience of acting in the role of chair/steering committee/editor for world leading events/journals.
• Hold leadership experience within wider academia or industry.

For an informal discussion of the post, please contact Roy Priest (Head of Department of Digital Media Technology via email (roy.priest@bcu.ac.uk).

In return we offer a generous pension and annual leave provision. We also operate a hybrid working model that allows staff to combine on-site and remote working where appropriate, dependent on work duties.     We also provide access to excellent facilities on campus, including supportive family friendly policies.

Further details:       

Job Description - Associate Professor    

Job Description - Senior Lecturer    
 

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