[CogSci] PhD: Marie Curie PhD position available at University College Dublin's HCI at UCD group on HUM.AI.N-ACCENT MSCA Doctoral Network

[Benjamin Cowan]

*Position: *

A Marie Curie PhD position is available at the HCI at UCD group in the 
School of Information & Communication Studies, under the supervision of 
Prof. Benjamin Cowanin collaboration with Dr Madeleine Steeds. The PhD 
project aims to investigate how the use of foreign accented speech by 
conversational AI agents can be used as a way to influence user partner 
models, how this impacts language production during human-conversational 
AI dialogues.

The Doctoral Candidate (DC) will be part of an international network of 
13 research labs located throughout Europe who work on the EU funded 
HUM.AI.N-ACCENT project. The full consortium has a total of 24 academic 
and non-academic partners in Europe, Canada and the USA. As part of the 
training, the DC will attend regular events across Europe and will take 
short stays (secondments) to at least two Beneficiary/Partner Organizations.

As a student, you would be enrolled in the 4 year Information & 
Communication Studies PhD programme at University College Dublin, 
Ireland. The position offers a work contract for 3 years with an 
additional funded year. The position includes a gross baseline annual 
salary of up to €49,396 + approx. €7,000 p.a. mobility allowance (for 3 
years) and approx. €5000 p.a. family allowance (if applicable for 3 
years). The position covers academic fees and includes funding for 
research training and travel.

*About the Project: *

HUM.AI.N-ACCENT is an interdisciplinary research project that explores 
the neurocognitive and social impacts of foreign-accented speech in 
human-human and human-AI interactions. With millions of new arrivals to 
the European Union each year, there is an urgent need to understand how 
foreign accents influence communication, decision-making, and social 
dynamics. Research has shown that foreign-accented speech can generate 
biases and increase cognitive load, yet the origins and consequences of 
these effects are still poorly understood. The HUM.AI.N-ACCENT project 
aims to fill this gap by combining insights from cognitive psychology, 
neuroscience, AI engineering, human-computer interaction, and social 
science, with lifespan perspectives. Using advanced methodologies like 
neuroimaging, eye-tracking, virtual reality, and neural tracking, the 
project will investigate how foreign-accented speech affects neural 
responses, attention allocation, and social judgments. By studying both 
human-human and human-AI interactions, the project will provide critical 
insights into how accents shape communication and behaviour in diverse 
contexts. Further information about the project: 
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101226709 
<https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101226709>

*
*

*Job description:***The successful candidate will receive 
interdisciplinary training in theories and methods for the study of 
psycholinguistics, more specifically, native- and foreign-accented 
speech processing. This includes many network-wide events and other 
(international) training opportunities.**

*
*

*Research Environment: *University College Dublin is one of Europe's 
leading research-intensive universities and is ranked within the top 1% 
of higher education institutions world-wide. The School of Information & 
Communication Studies is also an internationally leading information 
school,part of the iSchool initiative and is ranked in the Top 100 in 
the world by QS Rankings. **

The successful candidate will join the HCI @UCD group, a highly 
inter-disciplinary research group, specializing in researching how AI 
technologies impact and are impacted by users (https://hci.ucd.ie/).The 
HCI at UCD group, is one of the largest and leading HCI labs in Ireland. We 
are a friendly, collaborative and highly research active group, 
publishing regularly in leading HCI research venues (e.g. CHI, Mobile 
HCI, HCI Journal, TOCHI, IJHCS, ACM CUI, DIS, JMIR). Members of the 
group are heavily involved in major internationally leading Research 
Centres (RI ADAPT-https://www.adaptcentre.ie/ 
<https://www.adaptcentre.ie/>, RI 
Insight-https://www.insight-centre.org/ 
<https://www.insight-centre.org/>; RI D-REAL-https://d-real.ie/ 
<https://d-real.ie/>) with access to major national and international 
academic and industry networks and infrastructure.

The group’s faculty within ICS focus on a number of areas of research 
including Cognition and Conversational AI (Prof. Benjamin Cowan- ICS); 
Ethics, Communication and Design (Assoc. Prof Marguerite Barry- ICS); 
Human-Centred Health (incl. Mental Health) Technology Design (Assist. 
Prof. Kevin Doherty- ICS); Misinformation and Disinformation (Assist. 
Prof. Brendan Spillane- ICS); Cognitive and Social Psychological 
Processes in HCI (Assist. Prof. Madeleine Steeds- ICS).


*UCD Supervisors/Collaborators:***Prof. Benjamin Cowan 
(https://people.ucd.ie/benjamin.cowan) is Professor of Human-Computer 
Interaction and Conversational Informatics at UCD’s School of 
Information & Communication Studies (https://www.ucd.ie/ics/).He is the 
co-founder and co-director of HCI at UCD group (https://hci.ucd.ie/ 
<https://hci.ucd.ie/>), leading research on Cognition and Conversational 
AI. His work is highly interdisciplinary, fusing psychology, 
human-computer interaction and conversational AI to investigate how 
people interact with collaborative conversational interfaces. His recent 
research has focuses specifically on how theory and quantitative methods 
from psychological science can be applied to understand and design 
collaborative conversational AI experiences. He is co-founder of the ACM 
Conversational User Interfaces conference and is a Co-PI on the Research 
Ireland ADAPT Centre, which focuses on conducting human-centered AI 
research.**


Dr Madeleine Steeds (https://people.ucd.ie/madeleine.steeds) is 
Assistant Professor within the School of Information & Communication 
Studies at UCD. Their research is centred around technology augmented 
cognition and conversation. Madeleine's research interests lie at the 
intersection of human-computer interaction and cognitive and social 
psychology. They are particularly interested in how stereotypes held 
about devices and people may influence interaction, and in these cases, 
how the potential harm may be mitigated. They are also particularly 
interested in the effects of technology on human memory, and how 
interacting with technology may help or harm these processes. Dr Steeds 
is Deputy Director of the MSc in Human-Computer Interaction and is 
Subcommittee Chair for the Understanding People- Statistical and 
Quantitative Methods Subcommittee at ACM CHI 2026.

*
*

*How to apply*

E-mail benjamin.cowan at ucd.ie with:

·An up to date and complete CV

·Cover Letter

·Statement of Research Interests (1 page max)

*Deadline for applications is 19^th November 2025*

Interviews for shortlisted candidates will then take place in 
November/December with a planned starting date in January 2026 or as 
close to this date as possible.

*Requirements*

Skills/Qualifications

The candidate should have a Master’s degree (or equivalent) in 
Psychology, Cognitive Science, Psycholinguistic, Human-Computer 
Interaction or related fields. Previous experience with experimental 
psychology and/or quantitative research methods is required, as well as 
good knowledge of psychology of language, conversational user interface 
and conversational AI research. The candidate should have strong 
background in experiment programming and statistical analyses and 
excellent English written and oral communication skills.

Potential candidates must also comply with the Marie Curie Actions 
mobility rule:

  * The researcher must not have resided or carried out their main
    activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the beneficiary (in
    this case: Ireland) for more than 12 months in the 36 months
    immediately before their appointment.

·The researcher cannot already be in possession of a doctoral degree.


Specific Requirements

·Previous experience in participating in research projects (e.g., data 
collection, analysis).

·Methodological and technical skills: experimental paradigms in the 
psychology of language, human-computer interaction and conversational 
AI, experiment-based programming and statistical analysis skills

·Interest in the psychology of language, conversational user interface, 
conversational and collaborative AI

·Strong scientific writing skills and high attention to deta



As part of the Marie Curie Doctoral Network, other _PhD positions are 
also available at_:

*Nebrija University, Spain*

https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/372608 
<https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/372608>

*Basque Center on Cognition, Brain & Language, Spain*

https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/368766 
<https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/368766>  and 
https://www.bcbl.eu/en/join-us/job-offers/funded-phd-candidate-position-accented-speech-processing 
<https://www.bcbl.eu/en/join-us/job-offers/funded-phd-candidate-position-accented-speech-processing>

*University of Barcelona, Spain*

Please, check the university job vacancies in the following days for 
further information: https://www.neurociencies.ub.edu/job-offers/ 
<https://www.neurociencies.ub.edu/job-offers/>

*Open University of Catalonia, Spain*

Please, check the university job vacancies in the following days for 
further information: 
https://www.uoc.edu/portal/en/uneix-equip/ofertes/index.html 
<https://www.uoc.edu/portal/en/uneix-equip/ofertes/index.html>

*Bangor University, UK*

https://www.bangor.ac.uk/studentfinance/postgraduate/funding#psychology 
<https://www.bangor.ac.uk/studentfinance/postgraduate/funding#psychology>

*Radboud University, Netherlands*

https://www.ru.nl/en/working-at/job-opportunities/phd-position-accented-speech-processing 
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.ru.nl/en/working-at/job-opportunities/phd-position-accented-speech-processing__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!WlJJ_vi568uoKFbIhuNepqaTrTZCuEwaI0-YSptHPhK5EGCfKKrYqjogGt86KZm0W0Q-o22RZaq0DmC9LkdTZJrVgxY$>

*University of Padova, Italy *(2 positions)

https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/373324 
<https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/373324>

*University of Oslo, Norway*

https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/374275 
<https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/374275>

*University of Lille, France*

https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/373010 
<https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/373010>

*Free University of Brussels, Belgium*

https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/370780 
<https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/370780>

*University of Bern, Switzerland* (funded by the SERI) 
https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/372867 
<https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/372867> and 
https://ohws.prospective.ch/public/v1/jobs/77c6f78a-ac01-4c09-9908-66b17fbc18ce 
<https://ohws.prospective.ch/public/v1/jobs/77c6f78a-ac01-4c09-9908-66b17fbc18ce>


-- 
=====================
Benjamin R Cowan PhD
Professor
School of Information & Communication Studies
University College Dublin

NB- I do not respond or check emails at weekends or in the evening.
=====================

Interested in HCI? Then check out the Human in the Machine podcast, a weekly podcast of talks and chats with leading researchers in HCI

Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/02tLoEest27CcsxRybsWvX?si=a17032380749449b 
Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-human-in-the-machine/id1731316638
YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKvUyXDcg9Qg5hDy1GapoCXVL2V7cV9ZV&feature=shared

Recent papers:
Doyle, P.R., Gessinger, I., Edwards, J., Clark, L., Dumbleton, O., Garaialde, D., Rough, D., Bleakley, A.,
Branigan, H.P. and Cowan, B.R., (2025). The Partner Modelling Questionnaire: A validated self-report measure of perceptions toward machines as dialogue partners.
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction.https://bit.ly/451bSID

Gessinger, I., Seaborn, K., Steeds, M., & Cowan, B. R. (2025). ChatGPT and me: First-time and experienced users’
perceptions of ChatGPT’s communicative ability as a dialogue partner. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.http://bit.ly/4o2laNc

Cooney, O., Doherty, K., Barry, M., Coyle, D., Doherty, G., & Cowan, B. R. (2024). Using speech agents for mood
logging within blended mental healthcare: mental healthcare practitioners' perspectives. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (pp. 1-11).
https://bit.ly/40tEyZw

Jaber, R., Zhong, S., Kuoppamäki, S., Hosseini, A., Gessinger, I., Brumby, D. P., Cowan, B.R. & McMillan, D. (2024).
Cooking with agents: Designing context-aware voice interaction. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-13).https://bit.ly/451bEkL - ACM CHI 2024 Best Paper Award.

Peña, P. R., Doyle, P., Edwards, J., Garaialde, D., Rough, D., Bleakley, A., Clark, L. H. M, Tobar Henriquez, A., Branigan, H. P., Gessinger, I, & Cowan, B. R. (2023).
Audience design and egocentrism in reference production during human-computer dialogue.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.https://bit.ly/3ByXmJS
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