Doctoral Student in Human-in-the-Loop Autonomous Systems

We are looking for 5 motivated Doctoral students to help design the next generation of human-in-the-loop autonomous systems at the Division of Interaction Design and Software Engineering.

You will contribute to a future in which we can rely on better robots, autonomous networks, and other smart systems – impacting domains such as healthcare, transportation, and other areas of our society. These systems are often software-intensive and we develop mechanisms to create better software for safer, more secure, and more usable systems. You will be supervised by Associate Prof. Rebekka Wohlrab, whose research focuses on human-centered software engineering and self-adaptive systems.

About us The Department of Computer Science and Engineering, a joint department of Chalmers and the University of Gothenburg, spans the breadth of computing disciplines. At the Division of Interaction Design and Software Engineering, we design smarter ways to engineer better software, and explore how people engage with digital systems, combining global research perspectives with strong collaboration with industry.

About the research projects We are currently recruiting Doctoral students in two projects:

- "Expectations" project. The aim is to make autonomous systems aware of the expectations of their end users. Today, autonomous systems are not aware of what humans expect - even though such awareness could enable them to behave in ways that better align with user expectations or provide meaningful explanations when unexpected situations arise. We plan to represent and model expectations using formal methods, develop techniques that help a system reason about human expectations at runtime, and evaluate the contributions using simulations and experiments with physical robots. For this project, you need to be comfortable with mathematics and hold a degree in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, or a related field. It is an advantage if you have experience with probability theory, reinforcement learning, or Markov Decision Processes.

- "Self-adaptation" project. The goal is to design solutions that enable adaptive coordination between teams of humans and autonomous systems. Today, coordination between humans and autonomous systems is often hard-coded, despite the fact that real-world situations frequently require different team compositions, communication structures, or varying degrees of centralization and decentralization. The project aims to enable adaptive coordination, especially in contexts where multiple humans and multiple autonomous systems are involved. Runtime models (e.g., behavior trees or state machines) will be used to support adaptive coordination and increase the flexibility of coordination mechanisms. You will design software architecture solutions for adaptive coordination, develop software prototypes, and run experiments to evaluate them. Depending on your interests, one relevant research direction is cybersecurity in human-machine teaming contexts.

The projects are partially supported by the Swedish Research Council (VR), the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF), and Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP).

What you will do Research and develop theoretical foundations, methods, models, and tools for human-in-the-loop autonomous systems; evaluate those contributions using rigorous empirical methods; publish research papers and present your research in top venues; take courses at an advanced level within the Graduate school of Computer Science and Engineering; teach on Chalmers' undergraduate level or perform other duties corresponding to 20 percent of working hours.

Contract terms The Doctoral student positions are fully funded from start. The position is a fixed-term appointment of five years (with 20% teaching or other departmental duties). A starting salary of 35,725 SEK per month (valid from May 1, 2026), with an increase of 5000 SEK per month after 2 years. Doctoral studies require physical presence throughout the entire study period. A valid residence permit must be presented by the study start date; otherwise the admission may be withdrawn.

Application procedure The application should be written in English and attached as PDF-files (CV; personal letter max. 1 page; Bachelor’s and, if available, master’s thesis together with the transcripts). Maximum size for each file is 40 MB. Zip files are not supported. Use the button at the foot of the official vacancy page to reach the application form. Incomplete applications and applications sent by email will not be considered. Reference number: REF 2026-0422.

There will be an ongoing selection process and the advertisement may close before the application deadline.

For questions, please contact Associate Professor Rebekka Wohlrab (wohlrab@chalmers.se).

Source: official Chalmers vacancy page.