PhD Scholarship in Anxiety Disorder Treatment at Home (NETHERLANDS)

Job description

As a PhD student you will participate in the project ‘Computer support for anxiety disorder treatment at home (CATCH)’, which studies how effectively a virtual reality exposure therapy system could be used at home for treating social phobia. The system will use a real-time feedback loop to monitor patients’ emotional state (using subjective and physiological measures and voice analysis) to (semi-)automatically adjust exposure levels in virtual worlds. In the virtual world, patients are exposed to social situations in which they have to talk with human avatars. In the first year, the PhD student will work on creating anxiety stressors and an automatic feedback loop. In the second year, the focus will be on developing and empirically evaluating user interfaces (both for the patient and therapist). The third year will include a field study focusing on the use of the system in the clinic and at home; work will also start on the development of a self-diagnostic tool, to be empirically tested in the fourth

year. This PhD student will work closely with a clinical psychology PhD student at University of Amsterdam who will conduct controlled, randomised trials to study efficacy. The PhD student will publish in renowned journals and present the research at international congresses. The project will lead to a PhD under the supervision of Prof. M.A Neerincx and Dr. W.-P. Brinkman.

Requirements

You have a university master degree in the area of computer science, media and knowledge engineering, human-technology interaction, or cognitive ergonomics. Your performance in the master degree can be classified as excellent. Experience with quantitative and qualitative research, statistical analysis, requirements analysis, ergonomics, and/or human-computer interaction is an asset. You are comfortable with programming in languages such as Java and Python, and have an interest in creating virtual reality applications.
You have a creative mind, like to work meticulously and have stamina. You have excellent communication skills in both spoken and written English, and preferably in Dutch as well.

Conditions of employment

The successful candidate will be employed full-time by TU Delft for a fixed period of 4 years within which he or she is expected to write a dissertation leading to a doctoral degree (PhD thesis). The starting salary for a PhD is €2042 gross per month increasing to a maximum of €2612 gross per month in the fourth year.
TU Delft offers an attractive benefits package, including a flexible work week, free high-speed Internet access from home, and the option of assembling a customised compensation and benefits package (the 'IKA'). Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities.

Information and application

For more information about this position, please contact Willem-Paul Brinkman, phone: +31 (0)15-2783534, e-mail: W.P.Brinkman@tudelft.nl. To apply, please send a curriculum vitae including contact details of references, course lists with grades, and a letter of application in which you explain both your interest and the relevance of your skills and experience in the context of this research project. Please e-mail your application materials to J. Eddini, peno-ewi@tudelft.nl.
When applying for this position, make sure to mention vacancy number EWI2011-01.

Factsheet

Department/faculty	Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Level	Master degree
Hours per week	38
Location	Delft
Contract	4 years
Salary	€2042 to €2612 per month gross
Closing date	25-02-2011
Vacancy nr.	EWI2011-01

Information

For more information about this job, please contact Willem-Paul Brinkman, Associate Professor.

T +31 (0)15-2783534
E W.P.Brinkman@tudelft.nl

For more information about the application procedure, please contact J. Eddini/HRM.

E peno-ewi@tudelft.nl