Nostalgia for an age yet to come

We receive a lot of request for work and internship opportunities here at the Future Applications Lab, and we are very happy for that. Please excuse us if we are slow in responding to your queries!

To make it easier for you to decide if you want to try and get a position here at FAL, here is some basic information:

The best way to become a FAL member is to start out as a Master's student ("exjobb" in Swedish). If you are a final-year student and find one of our projects interesting, contact us and ask if you can do your Master's project with us. Several people who have completed successful Master's projects have continued to become full-time researchers.

All people we hire are expected to work towards a Ph.D. (doctorate degree) in informatics, applied information technology, computer science, or related areas. To do this you must have the equivalent of a Bachelor's degree ("kandidatexamen" in Swedish) or even better, a Master's ("magister"). Getting your degree will typically take at least 3-4 years.  It involves working professionally as a researcher, and to write and present papers about your work at conferences around the world.

Our ability to hire new researchers is dependent on funding. Right now we have funding to support 6 people, and since we are 6 in the group, there are no real openings! We are actively looking for more funding though, and when this becomes available, we will take on more people. This can happen tomorrow or next year - we don't know!

If you already know exactly what type of research you want to do for the next four years, you're probably not right for FAL. The field is constantly changing, and all our projects are collaborative to some degree, which means that the "lonely researcher" does not fit well with our model. However, if you find a lot of the things we (and our colleagues around the world) do interesting, and have an open mind, you should do OK.

There are certain skills we are looking for, including: the ability to quickly put together electronic prototypes; designing physical artefacts; graphics programming in Java and C++; an understanding of the study of use contexts and ethnographic methods; etc. But most of all we are looking for people with a variety of skills and interests who can work creatively together in a team.

Finally, to have a chance, you should clearly demonstrate that you have an understanding of what we do and where your interests and skills fit in. We all work very hard to keep on top of scientific developments, and so should you. Do your homework: research the conferences such as  UBICOMP, UIST, SIGGRAPH and CHI; read our papers on the web; figure out what other people are doing; educate yourself as much as you can. Not only will this help immensely if you are looking for a job here, it will also be invaluable if you should happen to get one!  

Contact Lars Erik Holmquist for more information. Good luck!