Research Associate

Role Description

Department

The School of Physics, Engineering and Technology brings physicists and engineers together to push the frontiers of knowledge, foster innovation and meet the grand challenges facing society. Our aim is to deliver world-leading research in both fundamental and applied areas whilst developing new technologies that work for the public good, in an environment where everyone can thrive.

As a School, equality, diversity, and inclusion are central to our culture and we strive to provide a working environment which allows all staff and students to contribute fully, to flourish, and to excel. We aim to ensure that there is a supportive and egalitarian culture at all levels and across all staff groups and offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums, campus facilities and services to support staff from different backgrounds. We are proud to hold Juno Champion and Athena Swan bronze awards, which recognise our commitment to creating an equitable and fully inclusive environment in which staff and students can thrive. We aim to inspire young people to engage with science and engineering through our outreach work.

Role

A cross-disciplinary team of researchers from the Universities of York, Cardiff, Manchester, Stirling, and Southampton are working together on an exciting EPSRC-funded project, Edgy Organism, to develop a novel end-to-end neuromorphic design approach and efficient hardware architecture based on spiking neural networks (SNNs). The project aims to develop novel computing solutions for the defence and security sector, that can autonomously and reliably detect illegal or harmful activities in crowded public spaces, with minimum intrusion of personal space and privacy, over long periods of time.

We are recruiting a team of outstanding researchers from Edge Computing, AI/ML, and Neuromorphic Engineering, to work with us on achieving Edgy Organism project’s ambitious objectives.

You will be required to undergo security checks, to be carried out by the National Security Technology Innovation Exchange (NSTIx) before beginning in this role. As the check can take a number of weeks we will require all candidates invited to interview to apply for NSTix clearance.

In this role you will:

• You will design and implement novel neuromorphic computing architectures, focussing on artificial spiking neural networks targeted at efficient hardware implementation.
• Collaborating with the neuroscience, engineering, and computer science RAs, you will develop functional models that can learn, store, and detect patterns of life from event-based datasets.
• Collaborate with the other project researchers to develop the demonstrator applications.
• Conduct research, publish, and disseminate research through publications, seminars, conference presentations and public engagement.

Skills, Experience & Qualification needed.

• PhD, or equivalent research experience, in Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, or similar technical area
• Excellent knowledge and skills in Artificial Neural Networks, Machine Learning, or Brain-inspired computing, including simulation and training methods.
• Excellent knowledge and skills in simulation systems development, including specification, design, programming (Python, C++, C or equivalent) and testing.
• Desire to work in a cross-disciplinary team.

By applying, you are agreeing that we can share your information with project partners.

Interview date: To be confirmed

For informal enquiries: please contact Prof Martin Trefzer (martin.trefzer@york.ac.uk) or contact the Department Administration (pet-hr@york.ac.uk).

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