Senior Research Associate: Sustainable Computing

Interview Date: To be confirmed

We are seeking candidates to design the next generation of sustainable computing. 

This post is part of a multi-year EPSRC Fellowship, a £1m UK-funded project with an exciting vision to revolutionize energy and sustainability research in computing to reduce overall energy consumption and global emissions from ICT. Large-scale ICT systems (Cloud datacenters, Machine Learning systems, IoT, network infrastructure) generate a substantial ICT footprint, and are a significant contributor to climate change. Conventional approaches in Computer Science tackle this problem via enhancing ICT energy-efficiency, however in many instances will increase the overall ICT footprint due higher demand and the Rebound Effect. 

This project in collaboration with BT aims to transform the research landscape in green computing by shifting away from computer energy-efficiency, and towards alternative designs.

Key duties of this post include:  

• Conduct original research to analyze and model ICT footprint within large-scale ICT infrastructure and AI systems at both micro and macro-scale. 
• Contribute to international reputation of the project through high quality and impactful publications. 
• Provide mentorship and collaborative research with PhD students. 
• Interact with academic and industry partners within the project. 

The successful candidate will have a PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics, or equivalent with experience in distributed systems, sustainable computing, or data science. The candidate will be confident in conducting statistical analysis, handling large sets of heterogeneous data sources, and have a good programming background. Experience with qualitative research methods is desirable, however not essential. 

For more information, candidates are encouraged to contact Dr. Peter Garraghan (p.garraghan@lancaster.ac.uk) and visit EDS Lab (https://eds.lancs.ac.uk/).   

The School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University offers a highly inclusive and stimulating environment for career development, and you will be exposed to a range of further opportunities over the course of this post. We are committed to family-friendly and flexible working policies, as well as the Athena SWAN Charter, which recognises and celebrates good employment practice undertaken to address gender equality in higher education and research. 

Candidates would join the Experimental Distributed Systems Laboratory,a large research group to design and engineer sustainable and secure computing. Our lab contains state-of-the-art facilities including a 150-machine CPU & GPU datacenter with full environmental control dedicated entirely to experimentation, a wide selection of environmental sensor devices, and research supported by companies including Microsoft Research, Alibaba, and BT. 

You will join us on an indefinite contract. However, the role remains contingent on external funding which, will end 31^st May 2025. 

This is a full-time position expected to start September 2023. 

Please note: Unless specified otherwise in the advert wording, all advertised roles are UK based. 

The University provides an environment that strongly supports the individual needs of each employee, whilst promoting the importance of wellbeing for all our colleagues. We have a range of support networks available for our employees, and more information on these can be found on the ‘Working at Lancaster’ information page. 

We are committed to family-friendly and flexible working policies on an individual basis. The University recognises and celebrates good employment practice undertaken to address all inequality in higher education. 

We warmly welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of their age, religion, gender identity or expression, race, disability or sexual orientation, and are committed to promoting diversity, and equality of opportunity

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