Postdoctoral Researcher

The Synthetic Society research team at the Oxford Internet Institute invites applications from enthusiastic and motivated candidates for two postdoctoral positions, working on cutting-edge research at the intersection of Machine Learning, Privacy-Enhancing Technologies, and Public Interest Technology.

These positions are full-time and fixed-term for 36 months with the possibility of renewal thereafter. The first appointment should expect to start immediately, whilst the second should commence in Summer 2025.

You will be based in Oxford as your normal place of work with the possibility of hybrid work within the UK only.

We are looking for candidates interested in developing their own research questions in alignment with the interests and skills present in the research team. We are particularly interested in investigating how modern privacy-enhancing technologies (e.g. based upon synthetic data or using formal differential privacy guarantees) impact research integrity and reproducibility. This is an exciting line of research with potential to not only improve how researchers access crucial sensitive data around the world, but also build tools for them to understand if the anonymised data they receive is “good enough” to conduct rigorous research.

The selected candidate will be provided significant resources, including generous opportunities for international training and conference attendance, IT equipment, as well as access to dedicated computing cluster environment—with the ability to shape future computing resource acquisition. This post is funded by the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, a flexible long-term public funding scheme that provides autonomy and flexibility to focus on research that matters. There are opportunities to collaborate with partners providing unique fine-grained access to healthcare data, as well as colleagues in Machine Learning, Human-Computing Interactions, Social Sciences, and Public Health.

Requirements: Applicants should hold, or be close to completion of, PhD/DPhil with research experience in computer science, statistics, applied mathematics, or related fields.

The ideal candidate should be organised, highly motivated, creative, and interested to work as part as a collective. A strong track record of first-author publications is expected from applicants.

We are primarily looking for candidates able to conduct critical evidence-based investigations into privacy technologies, and will work to train, support, and nurture the right candidate. That said, prior experience in one of the following broad areas are advantageous:

• Evaluating robustness of anonymization techniques and privacy-enhancing technologies against membership attacks, inference attacks, or reconstruction attacks and/or
• Fairness, accountability, and transparency in Machine Learning and/or
• Machine Learning research for tabular data or language modelling, and/or
• Statistical Learning and Bayesian statistics (e.g. experience with variational autoencoders or diffusion models) and/or
• Human-Computer Interaction (e.g. experience conducting large-scale user studies) and/or
• Computational Social Science (experience conducting large-scale empirical research at the intersection of Computer Science and Social Sciences).

If you would like to discuss this role and the possibility of an informal visit, please contact Dr Luc Rocher at luc.rocher@oii.ox.ac.uk. 

If you are eager to contribute to groundbreaking research, and have the skills and experience we are looking for, we encourage you to apply for this exciting opportunity. You will be required to upload a supporting statement, setting out how you meet the selection criteria, curriculum vitae and the names and contact details of two referees as part of your online application.

Only applications received before noon on 15 January 2025 can be considered.

Committed to equality and valuing diversity

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