Postdoc Towards Reliable, Explainable, Trustworthy, and Easy-to-Interpret Therapy Personalization

Job description
Current rehabilitation technology interventions require the constant intervention from the therapist to personalize the therapy plan to patients’ individual sensorimotor and cognitive deficits. This puts a tremendous burden on therapists’ cognitive workload as they must deal with a large amount of high-dimensional data to infer decisions. Although recent Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches for therapy personalization have yielded promising results, there are raising concerns about their interpretability and trustworthiness. Furthermore, previous research only employed single metrics, which are inherently a poor descriptor of the overall patient characterization.

This project aims to mitigate these limitations by developing a novel therapist-in-the-loop personalization approach based on Hybrid AI. We are seeking for a postdoc to combine the power of neural networks to learn meaningful associations from high-dimensional data with the possibility to explicitly model therapists’ reasoning by symbolic AI to provide reliable, explainable, trustworthy, and easy-to-interpret therapy recommendations.

The therapy plan could be adjusted at different rates, depending on therapists’ preferences, e.g., at a therapist-defined rate, by suggesting specific virtual reality games to address individual motor deficits and/or at a minute to hour scale, by automatically tuning the game difficulty/complexity and robotic assistance during training. To enhance the communication intuitiveness, we aim to employ e.g., semantic communications and/or knowledge graphs.

Job requirements
You are a highly motivated candidate with a PhD in Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, System and Control, Biomedical Engineering.

Further you have:

• Open-mindedness and motivation to embark on interdisciplinary research.
• Affinity with teaching and supervising students.
• Solid programming skills.
• Ability to take initiative.
• Proficient in verbal and written English.

Candidates with a strong track record in AI/ML, rehabilitation robotics, control, and human-robot interaction are especially encouraged to apply. In addition, experience with one or more of the following topics is considered a plus: motor learning, computer graphics, and movement science.

TU Delft (Delft University of Technology)
Delft University of Technology is built on strong foundations. As creators of the world-famous Dutch waterworks and pioneers in biotech, TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. For generations, our engineers have proven to be entrepreneurial problem-solvers, both in business and in a social context.

At TU Delft we embrace diversity as one of our core values and we actively engage to be a university where you feel at home and can flourish. We value different perspectives and qualities. We believe this makes our work more innovative, the TU Delft community more vibrant and the world more just. Together, we imagine, invent and create solutions using technology to have a positive impact on a global scale. That is why we invite you to apply. Your application will receive fair consideration.

Challenge. Change. Impact!

Faculty Mechanical Engineering
From chip to ship. From machine to human being. From idea to solution. Driven by a deep-rooted desire to understand our environment and discover its underlying mechanisms, research and education at the ME faculty focusses on fundamental understanding, design, production including application and product improvement, materials, processes and (mechanical) systems.

ME is a dynamic and innovative faculty with high-tech lab facilities and international reach. It’s a large faculty but also versatile, so we can often make unique connections by combining different disciplines. This is reflected in ME’s outstanding, state-of-the-art education, which trains students to become responsible and socially engaged engineers and scientists. We translate our knowledge and insights into solutions to societal issues, contributing to a sustainable society and to the development of prosperity and well-being. That is what unites us in pioneering research, inspiring education and (inter)national cooperation.

Click here to go to the website of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Do you want to experience working at our faculty? These videos will introduce you to some of our researchers and their work.

Conditions of employment

• Duration of contract is 2 years.
• A job of 36-40 hours per week.

Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities. The TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged.

For international applicants, TU Delft has the Coming to Delft Service. This service provides information for new international employees to help you prepare the relocation and to settle in the Netherlands. The Coming to Delft Service offers a Dual Career Programme for partners and they organise events to expand your (social) network.

Additional information
For more information about this vacancy, please contact Laura Marchal Crespo L.marchalCrespo@tudelft.nl. 

Application procedure
Are you interested in this vacancy? Please apply no later than 5 Jan 2025 via the application button and upload the following documents:

• A detailed CV, including a list of academic publications, and a list of projects you have worked on with brief descriptions of your contributions.
• A complete record of Bachelor, Master and PhD courses (including grades).
• Your PhD Dissertation (at least as draft).
• The names and contact addresses of two or three references.

You can address your application to Laura Marchal Crespo.

The intended starting date is February 15th 2025.

Please note:

• You can apply online. We will not process applications sent by email and/or post.
• A pre-employment screening can be part of the selection procedure.
• A knowledge security check will be part of the selection procedure (for details page 45: national knowledge security guidelines).
• Please do not contact us for unsolicited services.

36 - 40 hours per week

Mekelweg 5