Join Us
The Personal, Assistive, and Intelligent Robotics (PAIR) Lab at Imperial College London is recruiting three fully funded PhD students to join us in September 2027. These positions are open to both home and international applicants. The application deadline is 1 December 2026.
The topics of the positions are:
- Modeling groups of users - To develop a new generation of user modeling algorithms capable of capturing individuals within groups. These models will represent users’ skill sets, preferences, and social attributes while interacting with a robot. In your proposal please detail how you would model one of these (skills, preferences, or a specific social attribute), while a group of users interacts with each other and a robot.
- Modeling group dynamics - To model the group’s dynamics, capturing aspects such as changing group identification, cohesion, and entitativity. Based on this model, an algorithm will be designed to enhance the group’s dynamics and identify how the robot should present itself within the group context. In your proposal please choose one of these topics and detail how you would approach the topic.
- Open topic in human-robot interaction – This can be any topic within human-robot interaction or human-robot collaboration. Please read through some of my previous work to identify topics that our lab works in. For example, the lab does not work in the areas of robot control or SLAM. Include a clear motivation for your work, and the impact it will have. What novel problem are you trying to solve? Why is important? What positive impacts will it have on society? And what are the limitations of prior work? If it is a computational problem, include some ideas of how you would approach solving the problem.
Minimum Requirements: ICL requires all Ph.D. applicants to have a UK distinction (or equivalent) Masters degree. However, please be aware that PhD positions in the lab are very competitive. And therefore I will likely only consider candidates that have some previous research experience.
Research Areas: Our research focus areas are educational robotics, multi-user robotics, social eldercare robotics, and user modelling. However, I will consider all applications in the areas of Human-Robot Interaction as long as it is a novel and interesting problem. Please note, that my research does not focus on SLAM or robot control, nor on computer vision, and deep learning (unless applied to an interesting HRI problem). Read some of the lab's previous papers, to see whether your research proposal is relevant to the lab.
Emailing me: You are welcome to email me (nsalomon@ic.ac.uk) with any questions regarding Ph.D. positions, but please use "HRI PhD Applications" as the subject line. Additionally, attach an updated CV to the email. Please note that I receive a large number of emails and will ignore any emails that use different subject lines or whose research interest falls outside of Human-Robot Interaction. I will also not be able to answer any detailed questions on your research proposal before you have officially submitted it.
Funding: Once you have been made an offer to join the lab, this offer will usually be conditional on funding. There are multiple routes to funding. In addition to the posted scholarships, the department and the college offer several competitive scholarships a year (more information here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/computing/prospective-students/courses/phd/scholarships/). Additionally, there are several external scholarships that you might be eligible for depending on your nationality. Lastly, there is the option to self-fund, however, be aware of the high costs associated with living in London.
How to apply: To apply for this position, please follow the application guidelines at: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/computing/prospective-students/courses/phd/phd-application-guidelines/. In the application form, please write “HRI PhD Studentships” in the “Proposed Research Topic” field, and “Nicole Salomons” in the “Proposed Research Supervisor” field.
How to Apply: Applications must be done through the Computing MRes website: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/computing/prospective-students/courses/pg/mres-artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning/.
Emailing me: Please only message me (nsalomon@ic.ac.uk) about positions once you have passed the MRes admissions tests. In your emails please use the "HRI MRes Applications" as the subject headline. Please attach your CV, your transcripts, and your Reference Letters to the email. I will invite candidates for interviews at the end of May, so please message me before then.
Research Areas: Our research focus areas are educational robotics, multi-user robotics, social eldercare robotics, and user modelling. Please note, that my research does not focus on SLAM or robot control, nor on computer vision, and deep learning (unless applied to an interesting HRI problem). Read some of the lab's previous papers, to see whether your research interests overlap with the lab.
The best way to get involved as an undergraduate student is through Imperial's UROP program. More information can be found here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/urop/. Both undergraduates at Imperial and at other UK schools are welcome to apply. As our research requires the use of physical robots, we unfortunately can not take on any remote researchers.
Research Areas: Our research focus areas are educational robotics, multi-user robotics, social eldercare robotics, and user modelling. Please note, that my research does not focus on SLAM or robot control, nor on computer vision, and deep learning (unless applied to an interesting HRI problem). Read some of the lab's previous papers, to see whether your research interests overlap with the lab.
Emailing me: You are welcome to email me (nsalomon@ic.ac.uk) with any questions about joining as an undergraduate, but please use "HRI UG Applications" as the subject line. Additionally, attach an updated CV and transcript to the email. Please note that I receive a large number of emails and will ignore any emails that use different subject lines or whose research interest falls outside of Human-Robot Interaction.
PhD students - Occasionally, I will consider students interested in visiting the lab for 3-6 months. However, they must fall within the areas of interest of the lab and have already shown success in their research by having published in relevant top-tier conferences and journals such as HRI, ICRA, IROS, RSS, RO-MAN, HCI, AAAI, IJCAI, etc. I do not have any funding for visiting students, therefore the costs of the visit would need to be covered by your home school scholarship.
Master and Undergraduate Students - We are not taking any undergraduate visiting students between 2026-2027.