Postdoc position on Multimodal Conversational AI for Cultural Heritage

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher to work on the project Balancing Personalisation and Polyvocality: Dialogic Interaction for Open-mindedness and Empathy in Conversational AI. The project investigates how conversational agents in museum settings can balance personalisation with polyvocality: adapting to individual visitors while also encouraging engagement with unfamiliar, marginalised, or challenging perspectives.

Many current conversational agents and recommender systems adapt content to users’ existing interests and preferences. While this can improve engagement, it may also narrow what users encounter. In museum contexts, this is a particularly important challenge. Museums aim not only to inform and engage visitors, but also to support reflection, openness, empathy, and cross-cultural understanding.

In this project, you will develop and evaluate a multimodal, polyvocal conversational agent. The agent will use real-time visitor feedback, including eye gaze,...