The PhD researcher will be embedded within the EAST-STADIUS Division of KU Leuven, specifically in the eMedia Research Lab, and will work in close collaboration with the Mind-Body Research Group within the Division of Psychiatry, Department of Neurosciences.
The eMedia Research Lab is an interdisciplinary research environment focusing on the development and application of intelligent technologies for human-centered applications, with expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning, multimodal data analysis, and digital health. The lab investigates how advanced computational methods and sensing technologies can be leveraged to understand human behavior, support healthcare innovation, and develop personalized solutions for complex societal and medical challenges.
The Mind-Body Research Group, embedded within the Division of Psychiatry of the Department of Neurosciences, conducts clinical and translational research focusing on the interaction between psychological, behavioral, and physiological processes in mental health. The group has extensive expertise in eating disorders, clinical assessment, longitudinal monitoring, and the development of novel approaches to improve diagnosis, treatment evaluation, and personalized care.
This PhD project is positioned at the intersection of artificial intelligence, wearable sensing, and clinical neuroscience, bringing together complementary expertise from engineering and healthcare. Through close collaboration between the eMedia Research Lab and the Mind-Body Research Group, the researcher will have access to advanced technological infrastructure, clinical expertise, and opportunities for meaningful translation of AI-based methods into real-world healthcare applications. The interdisciplinary setting provides an excellent environment for developing innovative digital biomarkers and advancing objective, continuous monitoring approaches for eating disorders.
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Project
Anorexia nervosa (AN) is one of the most severe and persistent mental health disorders, characterized by profound disturbances in eating behavior and food-related cognition. Behavioral symptoms such as restrictive eating, meal avoidance, rigid eating patterns, prolonged meal duration, and excessive control over food intake are central features of the disorder and are closely linked to illness severity, treatment response, and relapse risk.
Despite the critical role of eating behavior in AN, current clinical assessment remains largely dependent on self-report measures, retrospective questionnaires, food diaries, and clinical interviews. Although these approaches provide valuable insights into patients’ experiences, they are limited by recall bias, social desirability effects, and the considerable cognitive and emotional burden they place on individuals with eating disorders. Importantly, they provide only intermittent snapshots of eating behavior and do not capture how patients actually eat in their daily lives.
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and wearable sensing technologies create new opportunities for objective, continuous, and ecologically valid assessment of eating behavior. Wrist-worn inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors offer a promising approach to unobtrusively monitor hand-to-mouth movements associated with eating without the privacy concerns, stigma, or practical limitations associated with camera- or audio-based monitoring systems. However, existing wearable-based eating detection approaches have primarily been developed in healthy populations and controlled environments, with a strong focus on classification accuracy rather than clinical applicability, uncertainty estimation, and behavioral interpretability.
This PhD project aims to address this critical gap by developing an AI-enhanced wearable system for automated tracking and characterization of eating behavior in individuals with AN. The project will combine wearable sensing, advanced signal processing, machine learning, and longitudinal behavioral analysis to establish clinically meaningful digital biomarkers of eating behavior. These biomarkers will quantify fine-grained characteristics of eating patterns, including eating rate, temporal organization, behavioral rigidity, variability, and changes over time.
By integrating technology development with clinical expertise, this project seeks to enable objective monitoring of eating behavior in real-world settings and provide new tools for early identification of behavioral deterioration, treatment response, and recovery trajectories in AN.
As a PhD researcher, you will:
• Design, optimize, and validate data acquisition protocols for wearable-based eating behavior monitoring.
• Develop robust signal processing and machine learning pipelines for extracting eating-related behavioral patterns from IMU sensor data.
• Develop interpretable digital biomarkers that capture key micro-structural properties of eating behavior in AN, including eating speed, temporal regularity, rigidity, and behavioral variability.
• Investigate relationships between wearable-derived biomarkers and clinical outcomes, including illness severity, treatment progress, and recovery, with particular attention to within-person changes over time.
• Collaborate closely with clinicians, psychologists, and researchers in a multidisciplinary environment.
• Disseminate research findings through international peer-reviewed publications, scientific conferences, and outreach activities.
Profile
We are seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate with a strong interest in AI4Healthcare and a passion for applying AI and sensor technologies to improve dietary monitoring and health outcomes for patients with eating disorders. The ideal candidate is a team player, motivated to collaborate with the e-Media research lab, Mind-Body research group, clinical partners, and interdisciplinary stakeholders, and possesses:
• A Master’s degree in Engineering (Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, or related fields) with excellent academic results.
• Genuine interest in psychiatry, neuroscience, and clinical research, with motivation to engage with patients and real-world healthcare challenges.
• Strong programming skills in Python; experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow is highly desirable.
• Proven research ability, demonstrated through excellent academic records and a high-quality MSc thesis.
• Excellent command of spoken and written English. Proficiency in Dutch is highly desirable, as the project involves interaction with clinical partners and participant-based data collection.
• Willingness to participate in data collection and real-world experiments
Offer
We offer a fully funded, full-time PhD position within an innovative interdisciplinary research project focused on developing AI-driven digital biomarkers for monitoring eating behavior in anorexia nervosa:
• Full-time PhD position (initial 1 year, renewable up to 4 years)
• Contract will start from November 2nd , 2026 or as soon as possible hereafter.
• Salary according to KU Leuven standards
• Access to state-of-the-art research infrastructure and cutting-edge facilities
• Advanced academic and interpersonal skill training through the Doctoral School program
• Interdisciplinary and collaborative research environment
• Training and mastering of advanced methods and transferable skills
• Opportunities for interdisciplinary and (inter)national collaborations
Interested?
For more information please contact Dr. Chunzhuo Wang, mail: [email protected] or Prof. Bart Vanrumste, mail: [email protected].
KU Leuven strives for an inclusive, respectful and socially safe environment. We embrace diversity among individuals and groups as an asset. Open dialogue and differences in perspective are essential for an ambitious research and educational environment. In our commitment to equal opportunity, we recognize the consequences of historical inequalities. We do not accept any form of discrimination based on, but not limited to, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, ethnic or national background, skin colour, religious and philosophical diversity, neurodivergence, employment disability, health, or socioeconomic status. For questions about accessibility or support offered, we are happy to assist you at this email address.
