We are looking for one EngD candidate in Data-driven prototyping of physician-AI collaboration to advance cancer care. 

Do you want to explore how clinicians can best collaborate with Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Do you want to prototype the future of cancer care?

About the project

We are seeking one EngD candidate for the MEDical Engineering, Innovations and Applications (MEDEIA) research project. This project aims to advance clinical decision support for (lung & pancreas) cancer care with artificial intelligence (AI), taking a patient-centered and physician-centered approach to optimize physician-AI collaboration and adoption of AI in clinical practice. It is key to design human-centered AI solutions that encourage long-term use and trustworthy engagement, and that also seamlessly fit into complex clinical workflows.

You will be part of an innovative multi-disciplinary team

This project is part of the Eindhoven MedTech Innovation Center (e/MTIC). e/MTIC is a public-private partnership aimed at creating and growing an ecosystem that offers a fast track to high-tech health innovations. Within this ecosystem, we aim to create impactful innovations in the oncology domain, through close multidisciplinary collaboration between an academic partner (Eindhoven University of Technology), top-clinical hospital (Catharina Hospital Eindhoven) and industrial partner (Philips Research and Philips Experience Design).

This EngD position will be embedded in a multidisciplinary team of in total 6 EngD/ PhD candidates covering clinical, machine learning, and design expertise. These candidates will closely collaborate and share data, AI models, technological platforms and methodologies as complementary focus points of each PhD position.

EngD position: data-driven prototyping of physician-AI collaboration

This fully funded two-year Doctorate in Engineering (EngD) offers an exceptional opportunity to be a key player in developing the future of clinician-AI collaboration. In the design-research trajectory, the EngD student will define a software architecture & build/ extend an advanced prototyping platform for medical image viewing and integration of existing AI that is used as a vehicle for innovation. It is used to explore and experiment how to best design and evaluate the optimal physician-AI collaboration. It facilitates clinical user testing as early and realistically as possible, i.e., through functional prototypes, with real AI on real patient cases in a realistically simulated clinical workflow.

We are interested in understanding what is the optimal envisioned collaboration between physician and AI to foster adoption and appropriate trust of AI in clinical practice. We see AI not as a black box providing conclusions, but as a tool with which clinicians need to work together. Important components of the prototyping platform that you will architect and build are:

• Basic functionality for medical image viewing & integration of existing AI
• Interaction with AI: user control of AI and feedback of the user back to the AI (e.g., adapting AI results)
• Different AI output representation through advanced visualizations (e.g., AI explainability, uncertainty communication, 3D holographic models)
• Embedding of UX quality measurement tools into the platform
• Defining a software architecture & building a platform that allows rapid prototyping of other medical use cases (e.g., early cancer detection or interventional planning based on different medical images, different AI's, different modes of interaction, different UI configurations)

This EngD candidate will address these aspects by applying the research through design methodology with hands-on making and prototyping in close collaboration with the research team and prominent users of this system such as radiologists, surgeons, and other clinicians. These will be closely involved in the co-creation process. An impression of the current award-winning prototype can be found here: https://www.red-dot.org/project/advancing-cancer-care-with-human-centered-artificial-intelligence-60211.

HSI Program

The mission of the HSI program is to train professionals who already have a Master's degree in design or engineering to develop competences in designing and evaluating interactive intelligent and innovative systems, services, and products. The goal is to ensure positive user experiences that support their values and needs. The HSI program is based on design thinking and system thinking, as well as scientifically founded and methodologically sound user-centered and data-driven approaches, paying special attention to the frontier of the complex systems enabled by artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies and its impact on individuals, organizations and society.

In the HSI program, candidates are positioned as designers throughout the program, as the intermediate between market demands and technical possibilities, between user needs and product satisfaction; candidates work on design cases and projects for research, industry, or government supervised by university staff and the host organization; Candidates work on assignments and case studies throughout the program; Candidates with backgrounds in the engineering, behavioral and physical sciences work in small interdisciplinary teams, together with other EngD, PhD, and Master students with different national and cultural backgrounds;  

The structure of the program is attached. The design project stretches over two years with a total of 10 to 12 month of effort. The courses are offered once a year and the candidate may decide to take a course during either the first year or the second. Elective courses can be adjusted or replaced if needed. Design cases are one to three month long smaller design or research projects in the context of the research groups. For each individual candidate a Training and Supervision plan of courses, design cases and projects will be developed and followed according to the background of the candidate and the needs from the industry and business. 

Career perspective

Examples of positions held by HSI graduates are data designer, ai-system designer, interaction designer, usability engineer, user experience designer, human factor engineer, information architect, manager in innovative businesses, and team leader of these roles.

Requirements

The HSI program is for people who are passionate in designing with AI and data

• with a focus on business model innovation, wish to improve the interaction between people and systems,
• wish to make technology truly accessible and beneficial,
• are interested in technological development and its impact on people,
• like to lead and work in multidisciplinary teams in an international context,
• like to be at the forefront of enabling technologies and want to exploit those technologies from the perspective of end-users, stakeholders, and business,
• are challenged by societal impact, engineering problems and real-world constraints.

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e, www.tue.nl) is one of Europe's leading research universities. The Eindhoven area, in the southern part of the Netherlands, is one of Europe's top 'innovation ecosystems', with many high-tech companies and institutes. TU/e is intertwined with many of these companies and institutes, and research at TU/e is characterized by a combination of academic excellence, industrial relevance and societal interweaving.  The Department of Industrial Design (ID) of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), founded in 2001, is a maturing department with over 650 students, both Bachelor and Master, and around 40 research staff members and about 10 lecturers. The mission of the department of Industrial Design at TU/e is Research on and Education in the Design of Systems with Emerging Technologies in a Societal Context.

The EngD will be under the supervision of Prof. dr. Lin-Lin Chen and Dr. Mathias Funk in the Department of Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology. The project will be executed in collaboration with Philips Experience Design; Dr. Jon Pluyter and Luc Geurts EngD of Philips Experience Design are closely involved in the supervision of the student. At the TU/e, the positions are situated within the research cluster of 'Future Everyday'. The Future Everyday cluster investigates the everyday interactions between individual people and the highly interconnected technology that surrounds them. Researchers measure, model and design for the user experience when individuals interact with social-technological networks in their homes, at work, in transit, while doing sports or going out.

Prospective starting date: February 2023. Position for 2 years with on average 50% project work and 50% deepening your knowledge and skills through courses.

• A Masters degree in an industrial design related discipline (e.g., Industrial Design with technical focus, Software Engineering with design affinity). Masters degree needs to be obtained before the prospective starting date of this position: February 2023.
• Strong full stack software development skills (the assignment is composed of roughly 50/50 back-end and front-end work).
• A portfolio demonstrating skills and knowledge in software architecture & software creation of interactive prototypes. Experience with designing AI-enabled solutions is a plus.
• Ambition to innovate in multi-disciplinary teams with a rapid prototyping platform to experiment with real data and AI in a medical context.
• Openness, interest and good soft skills to work closely with people from other disciplines and across organizations. Collaborate with partners (Philips, Catharina Hospital) in proximity distance.
• Eager to learn and tackle complex healthcare challenges. Experience working in a healthcare (design) context is a plus.
• Knowledge and skills in Software Engineering, including Requirements definition, System Architecture and Software design. Practical skills in programming languages (e.g., C#, Python, Java, JavaScript), 3D digital models and visualization tools (e.g., Unity, Three.js), and eager to further develop these skills.
• Fluency in English is a must (written and spoken), Dutch (spoken) desirable.

A meaningful job in a dynamic and ambitious university, in an international setting with a close relationship to industry. You will work on a beautiful, green campus within walking distance of the central train station. In addition, we offer you:

• A fixed-term, 2-year position in a research group with an excellent reputation.
• Salary and benefits (such as a pension scheme, paid pregnancy and maternity leave, partially paid parental leave) in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities.
• A year-end bonus of 8.3% and annual vacation pay of 8%.
• To support you during your EngD and to prepare you for the rest of your career, you will have free access to a personal development program for EngD trainees.
• An excellent technical infrastructure, on-campus children's day care and sports facilities.
• An allowance for commuting, working from home and internet costs.
• A Staff Immigration Team and a tax compensation scheme (the 30% facility) for international candidates.