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Position 1: Cybersecurity for Machine Learning Systems

Do you want to become one of the few world experts in cyber-security for machine learning systems? At Lancaster University we are seeking motivated students to join our research team to design the next generation of secure Machine Learning (ML) systems.

You will have the opportunity to conduct conceptual, experimental and exciting research to address fundamental system security attacks and vulnerabilities within the ML lifecycle – spanning design, training, compilation, deployment, optimisation, and execution. Example projects include:

1. How improvements to Deep Learning accuracy and performance impact its security characteristics
2. Finding and addressing vulnerabilities within prominent ML frameworks such as PyTorch and TVM.

You will join an internationally leading research team in computer systems and contribute towards creating a new platform for secure machine learning, and if successful, its dissemination and deployment globally.

You will have ample access to considerable compute facilities dedicated solely to experimentation, including a fully instrumented 120-node CPU & GPU datacentre. You will also be supported by researchers from the Lancaster EPSRC TAS-S node in security and from a recently funded EPSRC fellowship on next generation of computing systems.

Supervisors Professor Neeraj Suri and Dr Peter Garraghan will co-supervise this research.

Position 2: Socio-technical Aspects of Secure Autonomous Systems

The use of autonomous systems is encountering rapid growth as they complement and/or supplement human-operated systems across a variety of safety or service-critical applications covering civilian, industrial or defence needs. Autonomous systems entail socio-technical relationships with users in their environment, opening up a range of possible vulnerabilities (human, social and technical). Developing secure autonomous systems in the user environment requires fundamentally new cross-disciplinary research (sociological, AI, distributed systems and software) in creating new security frameworks, as well as developing the social science theory for societal, legal, ethical and regulatory implications. We seek candidates with an openness to cross-disciplinary research (Sociology, AI, DS/SW) to join a team of post-graduates and researchers developing secure trusted autonomous systems. We seek candidates with matching cross-disciplinary (Sociology, AI, DS/SW) backgrounds and interests to research secure autonomous systems.

Supervisors Dr Joe Deville, Dr Catherine Easton and Professor Neeraj Suri.

Security Lancaster

The appointed candidates will reside within the Security Lancaster Institute. The overarching aim of the institute is to drive capabilities for collaborative, multi-disciplinary research and education. The research in the Centre will be driven by an ethos of undertaking theoretically rich, use-inspired research. The latter will be achieved through close collaboration between the scientists in Security Lancaster and our industry partners.

Further details and application process

• Each PhD position, supported by the EPSRC Doctoral School, is for a three and a half years duration. Tuition fees are covered (only for EU/UK citizens) along with a tax-free stipend (~£17,000/year circa 2017-2018) for the duration of the PhD.
• Candidates should submit an application following the instructions provided on our Applying for postgraduate study webpage.

Please note if English is not your first language you will be required to provide evidence of your proficiency in English. For more information please visit our entry requirements webpage. We only need this evidence if we offer you the funded position. We don't expect it as part of this application process.

Details

Background

We are starting an exciting and wide-ranging fundamental research project that will address technical and social issues of security in order to develop Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS). Security Lancaster will lead the £3M EPSRC TAS Security (TAS-S) node for a 42-month period starting November 1, 2020. Lancaster is a top-10 UK university and is especially renowned for its unique socio-technical coverage of security. The TAS-S research also involves the Lancaster Intelligent, Robotic and Autonomous Systems (LIRA) Centre and is partnered with Cranfield University (a leader in autonomous system research). It is additionally supported by a range of UK, EU and international academic, industry and policy partners including Airbus, BAE, Raytheon, Thales, NATO, CMU, EC-CONCORDIA/CODE, AIT, TTTech, Academia Sinica, Arthurs Legal, RISE, and the UK Coast Guard.

As we grow the Lancaster TAS-S research team, we have an opening for 3 PhD positions. Each of these positions will have a dedicated post-doctoral researcher guiding the development of the research. This is an exciting position that provides challenging research growth along with extensive opportunities to interact with industry.

Position 1 - Fundamentals of Systems Security

For this PhD position, we seek candidates with broad security interests in researching fundamental concepts/techniques for systems security at the level of software components, OS and middleware. We are interested in research topics such as the specification of security, development of a quantification/metrics basis for security, the composition of security as well as researching security assessment and the verification of security

The appointed candidate will reside in the Systems Security Group (SSG). Professor Neeraj Suri will supervise and welcomes informal enquiries.

Position 2 - AI/ML Systems Security

For this PhD position, we seek candidates with broad interests in researching fundamental concepts/techniques for systems security. Our areas of interest are distributed/networked systems where we research middleware threat models, and especially the use of AI/Machine Learning techniques applied to control and decision processes of autonomous systems.

The appointed candidate will co-reside in the Systems Security Group (SSG) and LIRA. Professor Neeraj Suri and Professor Plamen Angelov will co-supervise and welcome informal enquiries.

Position 3 - Network Security

For this PhD position, we seek applicants for developing novel DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) mitigation techniques by leveraging permissions pee-to-peer networks. Defending against DDoS attacks has proven to be an extremely difficult task for network operators and administrators of Internet applications and services, due to the increasing ease with which attackers can lease botnets or cloud-hosted Virtual Machines and execute powerful attacks with minimal sophistication. Existing sophisticated anti-DDoS techniques that proved to effectively absorb DDoS attacks, such as cloud-based traffic-scrubbing, are costly and can be utilized only by a few networks leaving the medium- and small-scale networks with less effective defence options. The goal of the doctoral research is to explore how content decentralization through unstructured public peer-to-peer networks such as IPFS can be utilized to implement on-demand cost-effective DDoS defences without compromising neither the availability nor the performance of the DDoS targets.

The appointed candidate will reside in the Systems Security Group (SSG). Dr Vasileios Giotsas will supervise and welcomes informal enquiries.

Further details and application process

• Each PhD positions is for a three and a half years duration. Tuition fees are covered (for EU/UK citizens) along with a tax-free stipend for the duration of the PhD.
• Candidates should submit an application following the instructions provided on our Applying for postgraduate study webpage.

Please note if English is not your first language you will be required to provide evidence of your proficiency in English. For more information please visit our entry requirements webpage. We only need this evidence if we offer you the funded position. We don't expect it as part of this application process.

Details

• Closing Date: Open Ended
• Start Date: October 2020
• Interview Date: TBC
• Academic Requirements: First-class or 2.1 (Hons) degree, or Masters degree (or equivalent) in an appropriate subject.

Description

Three PhD Studentships are available to work on Next Generation Converged Digital Infrastructure (NG-CDI), an exciting, cross-disciplinary research project led by Lancaster University. NG-CDI is a five year, £5M programme of research funded by EPSRC and BT. It will forge the next generation converged digital infrastructure for the UK, delivering a radically new data-driven architecture for the autonomous operation of future telecommunications infrastructure. The consortium brings together leading research groups from the Universities of Lancaster, Cambridge, Bristol and Surrey working alongside BT, one of the world's leading communications service providers

What's in it for you?

Become part of a challenging team that’s working to revolutionise the infrastructure of the internet in the UK. Create an agile, resilient network capable of meeting the future needs of our rapidly changing society.

Develop links with external organisations

This project benefits from linkages with BT, one of the world's leading communications service providers.

Join an exciting research environment

The School of Computing and Communications offers a highly inclusive and stimulating environment for career development, and you will be exposed to a range of further opportunities throughout this post. We are committed to family-friendly and flexible working policies on an individual basis. We are committed to the Athena SWAN Charter, which recognises and celebrates suitable employment practise undertaken to address gender equality in higher education and research.

Who should apply?

We are seeking applications from graduates with a good degree in a relevant discipline such as Computer Science or Electrical Engineering. You must have the demonstrable potential for creative, high-quality PhD research.

Studentship funding

Full studentships (UK/EU tuition fees and stipend (£17,000 2017/18 [tax-free])) for UK/EU students for 3.5 years. Unfortunately, funding is not available for International (non-EU) students.

For further information

For an informal discussion about the position, please contact Professor Nick Race.

Application process

Please apply online via Lancaster University Postgraduate Admissions Portal.

Details

Cloud Security and Privacy

The pervasiveness of the Cloud (see Distributed Systems Security CyBOK) also implies our increasing dependence on it to provide for the reliable and trustworthy delivery of services. As the Cloud infrastructure and its services are exposed to attacks, the need is to:

• analyse the Cloud’s vulnerability to varied classes of attacks
• to develop mechanisms (access control, authorization, attestation, multi-party computations…) to provide for resilience to attacks
• to develop techniques to assess and measure the degree of potential disruptions
• conduct testing and validation across the entire technology stack of architectures, middleware and services

We seek candidates for exploratory research in all areas of design, analysis and assessment of Cloud security and privacy.

Supervisors

Professors Neeraj Suri and Antonios Gouglidis will co-supervise and welcome informal enquiries

Security Lancaster Institute

The appointed candidate will reside in Systems Security Group which forms part of the Security Lancaster Institute. The overarching aim of the institute is to develop capabilities for collaborative, multi-disciplinary research and education. The research in the Centre will be driven by an ethos of undertaking theoretically rich, use-inspired research. The latter will be achieved through close collaboration between the scientists in Security Lancaster and our industry partners.

Further details and application process

• Each PhD positions is for a three and a half years duration.
• Candidates should apply following the instructions provided on our Applying for postgraduate study webpage.

Please note if English is not your first language you will be required to provide evidence of your proficiency in English. For more information please visit our entry requirements webpage. We only need this evidence if we offer you the funded position. We don't expect it as part of this application process.

Start date: October 2021, or later

Deadline for application: Open-ended

Interview date: TBC

Academic requirements: Masters degree (or equivalent) in a relevant field.

Description

We invite applications from highly motivated PhD candidates with an interest in HCI technology and their foundations in human vision and movement. The studentships are fully funded for up to 4 years and open to students from anywhere in the world.

Eye movement and gaze are central to human interaction with the world. Our visual system not only enables us to see the world but also provides exquisite control of the movements we make in the world. The eyes are at the heart of this, never still, closely coupled with other parts of our body, and dynamically responding to motion in the world. In this project, we aim to harness the power of the eyes for human-computer interaction in 3D.

Our goal is to develop multimodal interfaces in which gaze is central and input from eye, head, hand and body movement combined smartly for natural and powerful interaction with devices around us, and in virtual, augmented and extended realities. This requires basic and creative research with broad scope for definition of PhD projects, for example, on:

• eye, head and body coordination and design principles for 3D user interfaces
• inference of attention and intent from continuous eye and body movements
• gaze input based on specific types of eye movement (smooth pursuit, vergence)
• combination of gaze, gestures and proxemics for touchless interaction in 3D worlds.

You must have a relevant Masters Degree (or equivalent) in Computer Science, HCI or related field. You need to have a genuine interest, and ideally experience, in human-centred computing, and should have relevant design, prototyping and programming skills. Any experience with VR/AR, Gaze/Gestures, or AI/ML techniques applicable to HCI is a plus.

The studentships are available in an ERC Advanced Grant project, and you will be part of a team with a strong commitment to collaboration, learning from each other, and mutual support.

You will be supervised and mentored by Prof. Hans Gellersen. If you consider applying, you should first contact him informally for discussion of your interest (h.gellersen@lancaster.ac.uk).

Contact information

Professor Hans Gellersen

School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University

Closing Date: 16 August (or until the position is filled)

Start Date: October 2021

Interview Date: TBC

Academic Requirements: First-class or 2.1 (Hons) degree, or Masters degree (or equivalent) in an appropriate subject.

Description

We invite applications from highly motivated PhD candidates with an interest in HCI and technologies for wellbeing. The studentships are fully funded for up to 3.5 years and open to UK students only.

The importance of wellbeing for fulfilling and productive lives cannot be overstated, and mindfulness practices have shown great potential in this respect. Eating behaviour is strongly interlinked with our emotional wellbeing but less research has explored how mindfulness technologies can support mindful eating. In this project, we aim to harness the potential of mindfulness practices to support such behaviour. Our goal is to explore, design, implement and evaluate innovative technologies integrating wearable, mobile and tangible technologies for mindful eating.

The successful candidate will be part of a team with a strong commitment to interdisciplinary research, and to the academic development of young researchers. You will contribute to the School’s strong research agenda on HCI and digital wellbeing to meet the growing societal need for wellbeing and affective health. In addition, the School of Computing and Communications offers a highly inclusive and stimulating environment for career development, and you will be exposed to a range of further research training opportunities throughout this studentship.

We are seeking applicants from graduates with a good degree: First-class or 2.1 (Hons) in Computer Science or related field, or a Masters (or equivalent) in Computer Science, HCI or related field. You must have the demonstrable potential for creative, high-quality PhD research. Strong programming skills are essential, while HCI research, design methods, and academic writing skills are a plus.

You will be supervised and mentored by Prof. Corina Sas.

Contact information

For an informal discussion about the position, please contact Professor Corina Sas.

Studentship funding

Full studentship includes a tax-free stipend for 3.5 years and cover of tuition fee. Unfortunately, funding is only available for UK students.

Application process

Please apply online via Lancaster University Postgraduate Admissions Portal, mentioning this studentship.