Research Associate

Fixed Term Contract: Full Time - 35 Hours per Week

Fixed Term Contract Until 31st May 2024

Applications are invited for a Research Associate in Security for AI, working in the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh. This post is part of the AISEC project, a UKRI funded research project on Security for Artificial Intelligence running from September 2020 to 31st May 2024 at the Universities of Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh and Strathclyde. 

The Opportunity:

The AISEC project aims to design and implement a methodology and development environment for “policy-to-property” verification of complex AI systems which are secure and explainable by construction.  The project is using lightweight verification methods to help document, implement and refine policies for complex deep learning and rules-based systems.  The project is examining two key AI application areas: autonomous vehicles and natural language interfaces and it includes collaboration with legal researchers and industrial partners in each application area.  The security strand of the project is investigating ways of specifying suitable security policies and their interaction with safety. 

For more information about the wider AISEC project, please visit the web page: https://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/aisec/

Knowledge, skills and experience

Essential knowledge, skills and experience are:

• A first degree and a PhD degree (or near completion) in Computer Science, Mathematics or Engineering.
• Research or practical experience in cyber security, covering technical and/or socio-technical aspects.  For example, knowledge of foundational logical and mathematical methods for security verification, access control policies, formal threat modelling, systems security; information systems security, risk modelling.
• Excellent programming skills.
• Ability to communicate complex information clearly, orally and in writing.
• Experience publishing and presenting research work at PhD level or beyond

The following desirable criteria will be evaluated by the level of proficiency. Recruitment will aim at selecting those candidates with the best possible performance in these criteria.

Desirable knowledge, skills and experience are:

• Background and publication record in at least one of the other areas of the project:  programming language theory, practical verification and automated theorem provers, complex AI systems, machine learning.

Feedback is only provided to interviewed candidates.

Informal enquiries can be addressed to the principal investigator: David Aspinall (David.Aspinall@ed.ac.uk).

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