PhD Opportunity in XR-OR: Extended Reality Analytics for Smart Operating Rooms and Augmented Surgery
Job No.: 674527
Location: Clayton campus
Employment Type: Full-time
Duration: The CSIRO Next Generation scholarship may be held for up to 3.5 years (fulltime) for Research Doctorate (PhD) studies
Remuneration: The successful applicant will receive a Research Living Allowance, at current value of $42,483 AUD per annum for PhD, plus $5,000 pa x 3 years training allowance, $5,000 for travel, thesis allowance $840 and cost of living allowance $5,000 ($2,000 paid at enrolment and $3,000 at PhD confirmation)
The Opportunity
This is an opportunity for a talented PhD candidate with strong skills in developing prototype systems for Extended Reality (XR - which encompasses augmented and virtual reality) and/or Artificial Intelligence (AI); as well as an interest in finding ways to use advance human-computer interaction technologies to make surgery safer and more effective. The successful candidate will join the Embodied Visualisation Research Group at Monash University under the supervision of Professor Tim Dwyer at Monash University, Australia’s leading computer graphics researcher.
Please note that this opportunity is limited to Australian citizens, Australian Permanent Residents, NZ Citizens and a person entitled to stay in Australia, or to enter and stay in Australia, without any limitation as to time.
The Data Visualisation and Immersive Analytics Lab is home to the Embodied Visualisation Research Group, Australia’s leading team of researchers exploring the intersection of Visualisation and emerging immersive display and interaction technologies, such as augmented and virtual reality. The research group is directed by Professor Tim Dwyer. We seek to bring data out of the screen and into the world around us. With timely and contextually relevant information, people can make better decisions and perform complex tasks more effectively.
To be considered for this opportunity you should fulfil the eligibility requirements for Monash HDR candidates. For this particular position you must also have an undergraduate or postgraduate qualification in Computer Science or related engineering or information technology discipline.
Monash University strongly advocates diversity, equality, fairness and openness. We fully support the gender equity principles of the Athena SWAN Charter.
The project
We invite applications from outstanding PhD candidates with undergraduate or postgraduate qualification in computer science with particular experience in one or more of the following areas: extended-reality application development; modern AI techniques (such as computer vision or large multimodal language models); and/or human-computer interaction.
We seek to explore opportunities and challenges for the use of Extended Reality (XR) technologies (including augmented and virtual reality, as well as mixed-reality interaction techniques) to support surgeons, operating room technicians, and other professionals in and around operating room activities. Particular areas that may be explored are:
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Immersive OR analytics: using XR to analyse data from various operating room sources. We will focus on techniques that will make such data available through hands-free interaction such that data analysis can be performed even during operations. Will also explore the role of AI to guide or suggest analytics.
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Patient Data Analysis, Procedure Planning & Organ Segmentation: we will explore immersive XR interaction techniques for patient data segmentation and surgery planning.
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Hybrid User Interfaces and Collaboration: we will investigate XR support for collaboration across locations & devices, with a focus on surgical interventions, i.e. intra-operative but also for surgery planning. Use cases are remote mentoring, intra-operative team collaboration or training.
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Service and Maintenance: XR support of hospital/surgery theatre technicians in service, maintenance and repair tasks. Again, AI can be integrated to support and guide workers, for example, to support predictive maintenance and task planning.
This position has a two-stage selection process:
Stage 1: Please submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to the Faculty of Information Technology Graduate Research Office at fit-graduate.research@monash.edu
With the EOI please include the following documents – CV (including a list of published works, if applicable), academic transcripts, cover letter, evidence of Australian citizenship or Australian permanent residency or New Zealand citizenship or visa which entitles a person to stay in Australia, or to enter and stay in Australia, without any limitation as to time - and a brief research capability and interest statement relating the candidate’s past education, research and work experiences to their interest and capability to pursue the potential research topics listed above.
Stage 2: Candidates who pass this stage of the selection process will be interviewed by Professor Tim Dwyer to assess their fit for the project.
Enquiries:
About the project - Professor Tim Dwyer - tim.dwyer@monash.edu
About submitting an EOI - Faculty of IT Graduate Research Office fit-graduate.research@monash.edu
Applications Close: Saturday 1 March 2025, 11:55pm AEDT
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