Automatic analysis of facial behavioural cues and their dynamics

Department of Computing

Fixed Term Appointment for up to 36 months

Salary: £24,570 - £31,240

Imperial College is ranked in the top five universities of the world, according to the 2007 Times Higher Education Supplement league tables.  

The Department of Computing is a leading department of Computer Science among the UK Universities. It has consistently been awarded the highest research rating (5*) in Research Assessment Exercises and was rated as "Excellent" in the previous national assessment of teaching quality.  

An exciting opportunity has arisen for one Research Associate for the prestigious European Research Council Starting Grant funded project on human naturalistic behaviour analysis. The purpose of the project is to attempt to build automated tools for machine understanding of human interactive behaviour in naturalistic contexts. The envisioned technology will be based on findings in cognitive sciences and it will represent a set of visual and audiovisual spatiotemporal methods for automatic analysis of human spontaneous (as opposed to posed and exaggerated) patterns of behavioural cues including head pose, facial expression, visual focus of attention, hands and body movements, and vocal outbursts like laughter.

Within the project, the applicant will be responsible for visual analysis and interpretation of human facial behaviour. More specifically, the aim is to design and develop a robust, real-time, multi-camera system for detection and tracking of human facial behavioural cues and their dynamics including facial actions, head gestures, and gaze direction, regardless of clutter, occlusions (e.g., by hand), head movements, and variations in lighting.

The project involves significant R&D challenges, and the end results will contribute to development of more natural user interfaces as well as to development of computer-based education, ambient intelligence, and safety and security technologies.

To apply for this position, you will need to have a PhD in Engineering or Computer Science. You should have proven knowledge and track record in one or more of the following areas: computer vision and pattern recognition, particularly in facial expression tracking and analysis, real-time video analysis, and stereo or multi-camera video analysis. Preference will be given to applicants with experience in configuring and building multi-sensorial hardware systems.

You must have excellent communication skills and be able to organize your own work with minimal supervision and prioritize work to meet deadlines. Preference will be given to applicants with a proven research record and publications in the relevant areas. The post is full time with a fixed contract of 3 years and is based at the South Kensington Campus. 

You will be part of the Intelligent Human Behaviour Understanding Group (iBUG), Visual Information Processing Research Section, within the Computing Department and based at the South Kensington campus. For further information on the group and related projects http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~maja/

Applications must include the following:-

• A College application form, which can be obtained from http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/employment/applicationformchairreaderclinlecresearch
• A full CV Including, University degrees and dates, past and present posts, list of publications
• A 1 page research statement should be provided indicating what you see are interesting research issues relating to the above posts, why your expertise is relevant, and what are your future research plans

Applications should be sent to:-

Marina Hall

Department of Computing,

Imperial College London,

South Kensington Campus,

London, SW7 2AZ

Email: marina.hall@imperial.ac.uk quoting reference: ERCMP12.

Closing Date: 22^nd September 2008