Postdoctoral Research Associate

The Role

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate to undertake research as directed by the investigator team of the EPSRC-funded Twenty20Insight project. The role's focus is to investigate and develop methods, tools and techniques to help build decision-making models for non-functional requirements trade-offs, based on techniques such as Partially Observable Decision Networks (POMDP) and Bayesian Neural Networks (BNN). These models will be further used for uncertainty reasoning and explanation/understanding of the decision-making. In particular, the post holder will investigate how techniques from the fields of Requirements Engineering, Software Engineering and Machine Learning (POMDP and BNN) may be combined. The aim is to help build models for supporting decision-making under uncertainty, considering trade-offs of non-functional requirements (NFR) for cases of dynamic adaptation.

Responsibilities :

• To understand and convey material of a specialist or highly technical nature to the team or group of people through presentations and discussions that leads to the presentation of research papers in conferences and publications.
• To prepare and deliver presentations on research outputs/activities to audiences which may include: research sponsors, academic and non-academic audiences.
• To publish high quality outputs, including papers for submission to peer reviewed journals and papers for presentation at conferences and workshops under the direction of the Principal Investigator or Grant-holder.
• To assist with the development of research objectives and proposals.
• To conduct individual and collaborative research projects under the direction of the Principal Investigator or Grant-holder.
• To work with the Principal Investigator or Grant-holder and other colleagues in the research group, as appropriate, to identify areas for research, develop new research methods and extend the research portfolio.
• To deal with problems that may affect the achievement of research objectives and deadlines by discussing with the Principal Investigator or Grant-holder and offering creative or innovative solutions.
• To liaise with research colleagues and make internal and external contacts to develop knowledge and understanding to form relationships for future research collaboration.
• To plan and manage own research activity, research resources in collaboration with others and contribute to the planning of research projects.
• To deliver training in research techniques/approaches to peers, visitors and students as appropriate.
• To be involved in student supervision, as appropriate, and assist with the assessment of the knowledge of students.
• To contribute to fostering a collegial and respectful working environment which is inclusive and welcoming and where everyone is treated fairly with dignity and respect.
• To engage in wider citizenship to support the department and wider discipline.
• To engage in continuing professional development by participation in the undergraduate or postgraduate teaching programmes or by membership of departmental committees, etc. and by attending relevant training and development courses.

This post is fixed term for up to 18 months dependant on start date. The funding is available from 01/10/2022 to 31/03/2024, when the EPSRC's funding for Twenty20Insight ends.

The post-holder is employed to work on research which will be led by another colleague. Whilst this means that the post-holder will not be carrying out independent research in their own right, the expectation is that they will contribute to the advancement of the project, through the development of their own research ideas/adaptation and development of research protocols.

Successful applicants will, ideally, be in post no later than 01/11/2022.