Internship Opportunity – Future of Work – Behavioural Science of Meeting Design

The Microsoft Cambridge UK Blended Reality Encounters and Workflows (BREW) team is seeking an intern to explore the behavioural science of meeting design.

Enabling effective, engaging, and inclusive workplace meetings is a key challenge for productivity in the new future of work. This internship will explore an underexplored opportunity: applying behavioural science, together with technological innovation, to understand and improve meeting design. It will delve into one of several potential research questions, including how people set, communicate, and perceive meeting goals, and how meetings can be classified into types that help people collaborate effectively. The actual project to be carried out will depend on the balance of the intern’s skills. This internship will have scope for impact on future Microsoft Teams product plans.

Responsibilities

The expected output of this internship will be:

• The design, data collection, and analysis of a study of people’s behaviours and perceptions around workplace meetings
• An internal white paper or document summarising the study findings with actionable design recommendations and best practices
• The opportunity for a publication in proceedings for relevant academic venues such as CHI, CSCW, or other venue / journal preferred by and relevant to the intern.

Qualifications

Required Degree

• Enrolled in at least a Masters program (PhD preferred) in Psychology, Behavioural Science, HCI, Design, or a related field.

Required Skills And Experience

• Research in psychology / behavioural science or a related field, demonstrated through publications or pre-prints
• There is a preference for experience in applied research in organizational psychology, behavioural science, and/or communication
• Methodological skills:
• Experimental study design
• Survey design (e.g., wording questions, response options)
• Quantitative data analysis (e.g., analysis of variance, regression)
• Synthesising research literature.
• Research management.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Desirable Skills And Experience

• Basic research coding skills (e.g., data cleaning and analysis in R, Python, or similar).

Timing and location

• This is a 12-week internship. Most internships are conducted over the UK summer, but this is flexible. The starting date is negotiable in 2023 based on availability.
• The successful candidate may choose to work in Cambridge UK for all or part of the internship, or work remotely elsewhere in the UK (only).

Hiring manager

Sean Rintel ([email protected]), Principal Researcher and

Lev Tankelevitch ([email protected]), Behavioural Science Researcher

Blended Reality Encounters and Workflows

Future of Work

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.