Senior Research Associate

King's College London - Informatics

About us

King's College London is one of the top 10 UK universities and among the oldest in England. The Department of Informatics within the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences brings together researchers working at the intersection of technology and society.

This role sits within Dr Petr Slovak's research group, which focuses on human-computer interaction and digital mental health interventions for young people, and is part of a new £1.2M Cambridge-led research programme investigating how social media designs affect adolescent wellbeing.

About the role

The Department of Informatics is seeking to recruit a Senior Research Associate to lead participatory co-design research with adolescents as part of a major new project testing how social media design features causally impact young people's mood and self-control. This is a unique opportunity to shape first-of-its-kind research—building a micro-randomised trial (MRT) platform where interventions are tested in real-time, in the wild, and co-designed by the young people themselves.

Working across UK secondary schools in partnership with the PSHE Association (access to 50,000+ teachers and 80% of secondary schools in England), you will lead diary studies, classroom workshops, & technology probe deployments to identify what outcomes matter most to teenagers and when interventions should be delivered. Your findings will directly inform intervention development by industry partner One Sec (2.5M daily users), ensuring research translates into real-world tools.

In Year 1, the focus is on co-designing proximal outcomes and delivery models with adolescents. In Year 2, you will pilot and iteratively refine the full MRT infrastructure with progressively larger cohorts before large-scale school deployment.

You will collaborate closely with Dr Amy Orben's Digital Mental Health Programme at Cambridge (world leaders in adolescent social media research), a trial psychologist at Cambridge, and the Chief Scientific Officer of One Sec (who holds a Cambridge Fellowship). This is a genuinely interdisciplinary role bridging academic research, schools, & industry—ideal for someone who cares deeply about involving young people in research that affects them.

This is a full-time position, and you will be offered a fixed-term contract for 24 months ending no later than 31.12.2029.

Research staff at King’s are entitled to at least 10 days per year (pro-rata) for professional development. This entitlement, from the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, applies to Postdocs, Research Assistants, Research & Teaching Technicians, Teaching Fellows and AEP equivalent up to and including grade 7. Visit the Centre for Research Staff Development for more information.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

• PhD in Human-Computer Interaction, Design, or a closely related discipline (or near completion)
• Demonstrable experience in participatory or co-design research methods with children or adolescents
• Experience conducting qualitative research (e.g., interviews, workshops, diary studies) in the context of digital technology design
• Track record of peer-reviewed publications HCI or closely related fields
• Experience or willingness to work within school settings and with young people
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including ability to communicate with non-academic audiences
• Experience working in an interdisciplinary team, including the ability to communicate and address differences across domains

Desirable criteria

• Experience with technology probe or prototype development and/or deployment in field settings
• Familiarity with digital mental health interventions or adolescent wellbeing research
• Experience with micro-randomised trials, ecological momentary assessment, or intensive longitudinal methods
• Experience collaborating with third-sector organisations or industry partners