Research Fellow - Marine Sensing

Salary: £31,066 – £33,641 (Postdoctoral Researcher) or £36,467 – £39,420 (Research Fellow)

+ 45 days holiday in a full year (inclusive of 14 public/general holidays)

+ Enrolment into Local Government Superannuation Scheme

The Environmental Research Institute (ERI) is part of UHI North Highland. Located in Thurso, on the north coast of Scotland, the ERI is close to many outstanding marine resources with excellent proximity to marine energy sites for research and innovation opportunities. Sustainable use of these wind, wave and tidal stream resources is key to achieving ambitious Scottish and international renewable energy targets.

We are recruiting for a Research Fellow to develop activities in marine sensing. The researcher will benefit from the purpose-built ‘Centre for Energy and the Environment’ in Thurso, comprising modern offices, instrumentation and electronics laboratories, workshops, and access to the Pentland Firth via ERI’s research boat ‘Aurora’.

The candidate will support design, development, upgrade and deployment of autonomous marine multi-sensor platforms to investigate the environmental effects of large-scale offshore and marine renewable energy. This will include:

• Design, test and calibration of autonomous marine sensor platforms and surveys
• Sensor and instrumentation selection, working with the multi-disciplinary team
• Electrical and electronic design, including instrument control, communications, power supply, redundancy, edge computing
• Develop & implement software for interfacing sensors and processing data in real time, enabling test and demonstration, before field deployments
• Contribute to development of algorithms for data processing and analysis.

Previous multi-sensor platforms include FLOWBEC-4D with various applications. Recent technological advances now provide an opportunity to develop next-generation sensor platforms, ultimately informing future distributed, scalable and coordinated ocean sensing.

Applicants should have a PhD or equivalent experience. A background in Electronic Engineering, Oceanography, Ocean Technology, Physics or similar discipline is desirable.

Research interests in some of the following areas are an advantage:

• Sensing and sensor integration, ideally marine sensing e.g., hydroacoustics, oceanography, hydrodynamics, imaging sonar, fisheries acoustics
• Software/hardware interfaces, parsing and processing data streams (e.g., Ethernet, proprietary file formats, common databases), communication networks
• Marine instrumentation e.g., hydroacoustics, oceanography, hydrodynamics
• Novel sensor platforms, robotics (ASV/USV, drones)

Multi-disciplinary experience, knowledge of programming languages such as MATLAB or Python, and a full driving licence are desirable. Experience preparing equipment for marine surveys is a benefit.

Experience can be exemplified by:

• Research outputs (papers, presentations, etc.)
• Research grants and/or knowledge exchange and innovation activity
• Contributing to postgraduate supervision
• Commercial or consultancy activity

Informal enquires can be made to Dr Benjamin Williamson, leader of the ERI’s ‘Energy’ research group: benjamin.williamson@uhi.ac.uk

Appointment will be initially for 2 years (subject to probationary period) with prospect to extend or transition to an open-ended position.

Closing date for applications Friday 3 February 2023. Interviews are planned for 15 February 2023 onwards.

Full details are available in the Recruitment Pack.

The ERI’s Strategic Plan is provided as an attachment.

Application Form and Personal Details Form

Please note, we are also advertising for an open-ended Research Fellow in Renewable Energy and the Environment, alongside this post.