Research Fellow in AI in Security Analytics

The Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen’s University Belfast, is currently seeking to appoint exceptional candidates to the posts of Research Fellow to perform research in the area of AI-enabled cybersecurity, called Cyber-AI.

This post is associated with the newly-created Cyber-AI Technologies Hub, where CSIT will collaborate with cyber security companies located in Northern Ireland on research and development projects in AI-enabled cyber security. The Hub is of strategic importance for QUB in relation to meeting it's commitments to the Belfast Region City Deal. In addition, this project is making a contribution of £2.4M to the University.

The Cyber-AI Technologies Hub is a physical environment where companies and academia can collaborate on the advancement and demonstration of AI and cyber security. This is an exciting and unique opportunity for the right candidates to be involved in impact-focused research at the emerging Cyber-AI interface, and to help establish Northern Ireland as the go-to-region worldwide for innovation in Cyber-AI.

The successful candidate will perform research in Trustworthy AI. The role involves gaining a deep understanding of AI systems' robustness, security, safety, and explainability for image classification problems relevant to a partner company. A key requirement is to design robust deep neural networks (DNNs) extending the latest state-of-the-art research and their formal verification using both proprietary and public datasets.

Among other duties, the post holder will:

• Undertake high- quality and novel research in the area of adversarial training for robust image classification, adversarial attacks for model testing, general approach of formal verification of neural network image classifiers, and explainability of image classifier model decisions.
• Design, develop, and refine experiments to evaluate CNNs performance and robustness computation.
• Carry out analyses, critical evaluations, and interpretations using methodologies and other techniques appropriate to AI trustworthiness.

About the person:

To be shortlisted for interview, candidates must clearly demonstrate how they meet the following essential criteria:

• Normally have or about to obtain a PhD in engineering or physical sciences area.
• Recent high quality research experience in machine learning/AI or cybersecurity, or both, as evidenced by a strong track record of publications in leading journals and conferences in relevant areas.
• Software programming skils.

To be successful at shortlisting stage, please ensure you clearly evidence in your application how you meet the essential and, where applicable, desirable criteria listed in the Candidate Information on our website.

This post is available for 3 years. Fixed term contract posts are available for the stated period in the first instance but in particular circumstances may be renewed or made permanent subject to availability of funding.

What we offer:

Beyond a competitive salary, the University offers an attractive benefits package including a holiday entitlement of up to 8.4 weeks a year, pension schemes and development opportunities. We support staff wellbeing with flexible working options, work-life balance initiatives and support for physical and mental health. You can find more detail on all of this and more at www.qub.ac.uk/directorates/HumanResources/pay-reward-and-benefits

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