Research Fellow in Socio-technical Innovation Aspects of Sepsis Diagnostics

Sepsis is a deadly, complex and fast-evolving condition. Current diagnostic techniques are time-consuming and limited in scope, requiring several different tests to be run to obtain a comprehensive picture of the patient's condition. The NWO-funded project SepsPIC aims to develop a sensor-based device that can quickly and accurately detect multiple sepsis biomarkers enabling doctors to make more informed decisions and improving patient outcomes.

Do you want to explore the usability, usefulness and conditions for using such a new sensor in clinical practice? Then joining our interdisciplinary team may be the right place for you!

We are looking for a motivated, creative and open-minded postdoc researcher who will work closely with sensor developers and interview, observe and work with clinicians and experts of sepsis to explore conditions for the embedding of this new diagnostic tool into clinical decision-making and pathways, explore alternative pathways, evaluate the acceptance and expected usability of multiplex sensors and machine-learning-based decisions and explore alternative material choices for responsible sensor design.

Essential Requirements:

• You have a PhD (completed or near completion) in a relevant field, such as human factors research, user research, health sciences, science, technology and innovation studies or similar;
• You are able to express yourself and understand Dutch at C2/C1 level, as you will work with clinical staff and operators and observe their processes;
• You have an excellent written and spoken command of English, as demonstrated by academic publications and presentations at international conferences.

Ideally, you also have/ it is an advantage if you:

• have experience in the health or healthcare systems and the medical device domain;
• are familiar with the process of supporting the design and testing of point of care and medical technology;
• are experienced in qualitative research methods including semi-structured interviews or observations;
• are an excellent team player and are passionate about working with scientists and practitioners from different backgrounds.

You will be supervised by the PI Dr Simone Borsci (CODE) and Dr Kornelia Konrad (KiTeS). Ideally, you create linkages with both groups, but depending on your background and preference your main embedding may be with one or the other group.

The CoDE section consists of teachers and researchers with backgrounds in psychology, educational science, mathematics, or computer science. We teach courses on methodology, data-analysis, and cognitive psychology. Our research focuses on data-based solutions for societal problems related to education, health, and human factors. In our teaching and research, we make use of the latest developments in measurement and (large-scale) assessment, such as neurophysiology, extended reality, eye-tracking, psychometrics, and machine learning.

The KiTeS group is dedicated to analysing and improving the contribution of Knowledge to Transformations in Society to address intersecting societal and environmental challenges, including growing disparities and inequities, climate change, and biodiversity loss. The KiTeS group works across diverse disciplines and scholarly fields and draws on critical, historical, participatory, design-oriented, and arts-based methods and approaches. We work in different domains such as science and innovation policy, higher education, and environmental governance, and we collaborate closely with policymakers, social movements and grassroots organisations, cultural institutions, scientists and engineers, and business and financial institutions. Guided by values of justice, pluralism, sustainability, and care, our work is aimed at creating spaces for collaboration, critical analysis, reflection, and learning.