Assistant Professor/ Associate Professor in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

The Department of Computer Science and Technology is seeking to recruit a new faculty member at the Assistant Professor/Associate Professor level who can contribute to research and teaching in the area of Human-Computer Interaction.

We encourage applications from candidates having broadly interdisciplinary expertise, and a strong desire to contribute to human-centric design research and teaching at all levels from undergraduate study to doctoral research.

Cambridge has hosted a respected expert concentration in HCI since the birth of the discipline, at centres including the MRC Applied Psychology Unit, Xerox EuroPARC, and Microsoft Research Cambridge. As a small city where collaboration takes place by bicycle journeys rather than freeways, both casual and formal interaction is routine. In recent years, rapid expansion of University groups in Intelligent Interactive Systems, Digital Humanities, and Human-Inspired AI has created a dynamic set of opportunities for HCI. The most distinctive of these comes from the historical traditions of the "collegiate" university, shared with Oxford, where faculty from different disciplines routinely work alongside colleagues who are expert in every possible field of academic inquiry.

The Cambridge degree programme in Computer Science broadly follows and extends the ACM curriculum, with many opportunities for local innovation, responding to the distinctive potential of the dynamic industry environment and diverse and talented student intake of Cambridge University. The person appointed will advance curriculum and contribute to undergraduate teaching in interaction design and theoretical fundamentals of HCI, and will also have the opportunity to develop innovative graduate research content within the broad scope of the MPhil in Advanced Computer Science (ACS). The ACS integrates a wide range of cutting-edge technical content across all fields of computer science, extending to many kinds of HCI-focused content, including human-centred AI, theories of socio-technical interaction, psychology of programming, intelligent user interfaces, affective computing, cybercrime, computer music, mobile health and others. Candidates will be excellent communicators and will be committed to the teaching of undergraduate and Master's courses and they will also be expected to supervise research at Masters and PhD level.

All members of the Department are supported in the development of personal research leadership. The Department offers excellent administrative support within the diverse Cambridge ecosystem, with specialist local dedicated support in research management and funding, communications, finance, recruitment etc. The Department is also closely engaged with university-wide support for research commercialisation, collaboration and sponsorship, ethical governance of technology, and a wide range of interdisciplinary centres, training programmes, and initiatives. The Computer Lab has a proud history of leading and enabling advance in many academic fields, and the broad collaborative work that is essential to advances in HCI is both supported and encouraged.

The person appointed will be expected to have a strong profile within the HCI community, with an excellent track record of bridging from the technical practices of human-centric design of advanced technologies, to both deep and broad experience of the interdisciplinary methods and theories that are essential to the continued evolution of HCI, potentially spanning social sciences, brain sciences, humanities, creative arts and design, and expertise in other emergent fields.

Interviews will be held in person in Cambridge on 26 and 27 March 2025.

The appointment will be from 1 September 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Interested applicants are encouraged to make informal enquiries about the post to Professor Alan Blackwell -

You should also provide the contact details of three referees. If you upload any additional documents which have not been requested, we will not be able to consider these as part of your application.

The University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from all sections of society.

The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.