PhD Position in Affective Computing – Bridging Affect and Cognition

Principal Investigator: Assist. Prof. Dr. Nilay Yalcin oyalcin@sfu.ca

Project Start Date: September 2024

Research Topic: Emotion Recognition, Emotional Reasoning, Causal Reasoning, Theory of Mind,
Affective Computing, Cognitive Science

We are looking for an excellent PhD candidate to fill positions that will be available starting 2024 Fall
Semester (September 2024) in SIAT, Simon Fraser University located in beautiful BC, Canada. The start
date may have some flexibility, which should be discussed with the PI during the application process.
Applications are currently open with a deadline of June 15th 2024, where application materials need to be
emailed to the principal investigator before the deadline.

Project Description

The overarching goal of the research program is to advance the theory and practice of affective computing
through empirical testing of emotional reasoning theories from Cognitive Science that connects certain
cognitive processes (i.e., theory of mind, causal reasoning, perspective taking) with human affect. The PhD
project will focus on emotional theory of mind, also called affective cognition, which refers to the ability
to infer others’ emotions by reasoning about their mental states. This ability is tied to moral evaluation
and holds potential for ethical AI. The PhD student will develop suitable datasets from human behavior
data, build statistical and causal models of emotional reasoning processes, and evaluate these models’
performance in a variety of tasks. The PhD project will be beyond a classic AI-project, and will incorporate
the knowledge and theories from the Cognitive Science, Psychology and Neuroscience research. The
results of this work will be used to create intelligent interactive systems, such as chatbots or avatars,
however the scope of the PhD thesis will not necessarily involve this step.

Requirements and Description for Each Position

This project will constitute the thesis of one PhD student. The initial appointment will be as a 4-year
contract ($28,000 CAD/year), first year guaranteed and subject to be renewed every year based on the
performance requirements by SIAT. Required qualifications:

• BSc and/or MSc degree in Computer Science, Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related
field (Canadian BSc students can be considered for a direct to PhD application given an exceptional
academic record);
• Experience with machine learning and quantitative research methods through coursework and
projects:
• Good programming skills (preferably Python), including ML methods and libraries;
• Ability to work autonomously and deliver solid scientific work;
• Have strong communication skills and a good command of English in disseminating research
results.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience in multimodal affective computing models or user modeling techniques;

• Knowledge and interest in Cognitive Theories of Emotion and/or Emotion recognition;
 • Experience in running experiments with participants;
• Experience in eye tracking equipment or data analysis, or a willingness to learn.

Application Procedure

Initial applications will be done by sending 1 combined .pdf file named as “first_lastname_PhD.pdf”, which
includes the following to Dr. Yalcin (oyalcin@sfu.ca) with the subject line: “2024 Graduate Student
Application PhD”: (1) a 1-page cover-letter structured to address the qualifications, role responsibilities,
previous applicable experience as listed above, and the reason you are interested in this position (2) your
resume (CV) which also includes a link to your personal project repository (Github and/or website), (3)
your BSC and MSC transcripts to date showing relevant coursework, (4) Any example publications.

Upon approval by the PI, the applicants will be required to apply to SIAT through the official application
process, this process will be explained by the PI later in the process:
https://www.sfu.ca/siat/programs/graduate/admissions.html