Postdoctoral Research Associate

The Department

The Department is one of the UK's best Mathematics departments, with an outstanding reputation in research, teaching, and student employability. Ranked 7th in terms of grade point average intensity in the Research Excellence Framework 2014, it has an active programme of internationally recognised research in Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics (including Applied and Computational Mathematics as well as Mathematical and Theoretical Particle Physics), and Statistics and Probability. The research culture is vibrant, with many visitors, seminars, international conferences and workshops. We aim to provide a supportive and friendly environment with a strong sense of community. The Department, which currently has 100 permanent members of staff, has recently grown significantly. In 2021, we moved to a newly constructed building, which we share with Computer Science, with the goal of fostering constructive interdisciplinary exchanges. Both the Department and the University run High Performance Computing services.

The Statistics Group within the Department of Mathematical Sciences has 23 academic staff, plus postdoctoral researchers and PhD students. Research spans a wide range. Current interests include: Bayesian statistics; modelling of structure, geometry, and shape; statistical machine learning; computational statistics; high-dimensional statistics; nonparametric statistics; foundations of statistics and decision theory; applied statistics, with specific attention to large-scale applications in a wide variety of contexts.

There are many active collaborations with other Durham University departments and research institutes, including the newly founded Institute for Data Science, as well as with companies and governmental bodies. The Department operates a Statistics and Mathematics Consultancy Unit, which provides a focus for external liaison with outside and commercial organisations. Clients include local companies, multi-nationals and national and international governmental organisations. The Group provided 6 impact case studies for REF 2014.

The Department holds an Athena SWAN Bronze award. Athena SWAN is a national initiative that recognises the advancement of gender equality, representation, progression and success for all in academia. The Department also supports the London Mathematical Society Good Practice Scheme, whose aim is to support mathematics departments to embed equal opportunities for women within their working practices.

The Role

The Department of Mathematical Sciences invites applications for a one-year full-time Postdoctoral Research Associate position beginning in October 2022 or earlier.

The successful candidate will work on EPSRC New Horizons project 'A New Foundation for Statistical Shape Analysis' with PI Professor Ian Jermyn at Durham and Co-I Professor Karthik Bharath at University of Nottingham, as well as international Visiting Researchers. Candidates with a strong track record in statistical shape analysis, geometric computation, computer vision, or related areas are encouraged to apply.