Research Assistant in Safety Assurance

We are a world class research-intensive university. We deliver teaching and learning of the highest quality. We play a leading role in economic, social and cultural development of the North East of England. Attracting and retaining high-calibre people is fundamental to our continued success.

The Role
This is an exciting opportunity, ideal for an early career researcher, to be part of an internationally recognised research and innovation team. You will contribute to an innovative international research project on Practical Testing of Formal Requirements (PlaTFoRm), funded jointly by Innovate UK and the German ZIM initiatives. In this project, two companies - D-Risq Ltd in the UK and Verified Software International (VSI) - are working to link their software tools to help detect errors in safety-critical systems cost-effectively and at an early stage of development. These two companies are being supported in the project by Newcastle University in the UK and fortiss GmbH (Research Institute of the Free State of Bavaria) in Germany, in part using case studies to test and assess the new approach.

You will work primarily on one of these case studies, a medical device prototype, by formalising requirements and building models of the system, and taking these models through the tools developed by D-Risq and VSI through to code generation. You will need to work closely with ourselves and colleagues at our partner institutions to understand the techniques and emerging tools, working to find and fix problems, and give constructive feedback. You will also contribute to writing project deliverables, as well as papers and presentations for external audiences. We are looking for someone who possesses the ability to use creativity and challenge standard ways of thinking in order to overcome problems. Your role will be key to the project by contributing with creativity, communication, and technical skills.

The School of Computing values individual differences and the diversity that this brings and we want to ensure that no-one is at a disadvantage because of who they are. Our values are embedded in our engagement activity and we are therefore looking for someone who has diversity of thought and who embraces equality, diversity and inclusion, ensuring our values are entrenched in our research activity.

We are looking for someone with a ‘can do' attitude and a flexible and helpful approach. As a key technical researcher, you must be an excellent communicator with demonstrable interpersonal skills and the ability to solve problems.

This is a fixed-term, part-time position, 18.5 hours for the duration of 21 months.

For more information about the School of Computing, please visit https://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/.

Prospective candidates are encouraged to informally contact Dr Ken Pierce (kenneth.pierce@ncl.ac.uk) and Dr Leo Freitas (leo.freitas@ncl.ac.uk) via email with any enquiries.

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