School of Engineering and Applied Science PhD Studentship (3 years)

The Nonlinearity and Complexity Research Group at Aston University are pleased to invite applications for a three year PhD studentship in machine learning applied to signal processing, supervised by Dr Max Little, supported by the School of Engineering and Applied Science. The successful applicant will join an established group and will work on applying the theoretical machinery of contemporary machine learning to stochastic and nonlinear time series analysis methods, where the time series arise from practical, real-world problems.

The position is available to start in 2013 (subject to negotiation)

Financial Support This studentship includes a fee bursary to cover the home/EU fees rate plus a maintenance allowance of £13,590. Applicants from outside the EU may apply for this studentship but will need to pay the difference between the ‘Home/EU’ and the ‘Overseas’ tuition fees, currently this is £10,372 in 2012/13.

Background of the Project Proposed topics would include contemporary machine learning concepts such as sparsity, nonparametric Bayes, maximum margin discrimination, and structured output learning, with both deterministic and stochastic inference approaches, organized in directed and undirected, dynamic graphical models. Potential applications could include detecting and quantifying neurological disorders using multivariate signals, noise removal from irregular measurements of the symptoms of progressive diseases, and nanopore-based next-generation DNA sequencing.

Person Specification The successful applicant should have a first class or upper second class honours degree or equivalent qualification in statistics, applied mathematics, computer science, electronic engineering or (mathematical) physics. Preferred skill requirements include knowledge/experience of programming with numerical software packages such as Matlab, R, Mathematica; a track record of academic publications would be an advantage.

For informal enquiries please contact Dr Max Little by email (max.little@aston.ac.uk).

The online application form, reference forms and details of entry requirements, including English language are available at http://www1.aston.ac.uk/eas/research/prospective-research-students/how-to-apply/

Quoting Reference R130091

Closing Date: 1st July 2013