PhD fellowship in the field of Garment-Based Wearables for Shared Management of Anxiety of the Student in the University Context (5+3)

The Graduate School at Arts, Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University, in collaboration with the Carlsberg Foundation, invites applications for a fully funded PhD fellowship in Garment-Based Wearables for Shared Management of Anxiety of the Student in the University Context provided the necessary funding is available. This PhD fellowship is available as of 1 August 2024 for a period of up to three years (5+3). The candidate who is awarded the fellowship must commence his/her PhD degree programme on 1 August 2024. 

To help university students cope with their growing study-related anxiety and prevent it from developing into more severe mental health issues, this project investigates how smart garment-based wearables could be designed to allow shared management of student anxiety with their close ones in the study context.

The project will apply a qualitative research approach to understand university students' experiences with study-related anxiety. After that a co-design approach is used to investigate stakeholders needs for the wearable technology. Based on the findings, the project will apply constructive design research approach to design and develop garment-based wearables for the shared management of student anxiety. Finally, the subjective lived experiences with the wearables will be studied.

The project will be located at the Department of Digital Design and Information Studies (DDIS). The researchers at DDIS have long traditions of interaction and speculative design, constructive design research, qualitative health, human-computer interaction, and co-design research.

For the prototyping activities of this project, the PhD supervisor have an AU Wearables Lab with all the needed machines for crafting and soft manufacturing of the wearable prototypes.

A suitable candidate for PhD student position has knowledge in interaction or product design, technical implementation, and physical prototyping. It is a plus if the candidate has some experience with soft manufacturing machinery (i.e., sewing, knitting, and/or embroidery machines) and soft electronics crafting. Also, some experience in qualitative or mixed methods research is expected.

The applicant is asked to provide a design portfolio of previous works.