PhD student position in Sensor Network Security

Blekinge Institute of Technology, BTH, is one of the most distinctly profiled universities in Sweden, where applied IT and innovation for sustainable growth are in focus. In our education and research, engineering and IT are integrated with other disciplines such as urban planning, industrial economics, design and health sciences to contribute to solving the challenges facing society. Everything we do at BTH has three distinct perspectives: innovation, sustainability and in real life, which means cooperation and exchange with both business and industry as well as society. A characteristic of BTH is the close cooperation with industry and society, which permeates both education and research at the regional, national and international level. We conduct education and research at a high international level. BTH has two faculties – the Faculty of Computing and the Faculty of Engineering.

TheDepartment of Computer Science (DIDA) is one of three departments at the Faculty of Computing. The department is BTH’s largest department at BTH with 70 people. At the department, research is conducted in two major areas: computer science and  engineering , as well as visual and interactive computer science . There are a number of different research projects in both areas.

Work description

BTH is inviting applications for a PhD position (full-time) at the Department of Computer Science (DIDA – Institutionen för Datavetenskap) in sensor network security. The position is financed by the KK project SIGS-CyberSec "Swedish Industrial Graduate School in CyberSecurity".

The position is a combination of  industry research and teaching in cybersecurity. It focuses on ensuring system and network security in smart and embedded sensor networks. An embedded sensor network is a network of embedded computers located in the physical world and interacting with the environment. These embedded computers, or sensor nodes, are often physically small, each with a set of sensors or actuators. The sensor nodes are deployed in situ, physically located in the environment near the objects they sense. The sensor nodes are interconnected in networks, allowing them to communicate and co-operate with each other to monitor the environment and change it. Sensor networks can be stationary or mobile, for example when sensors are attached to moving objects. These characteristics: being embedded and being able to sense, activate and communicate, define the domain of sensor networks and distinguish it from remote sensing and traditional centralised sensing systems.

Embedded sensor network may convey sensitive technical and personal information such as a monitoring object’s identification and address in the smart environment, thereby making the monitoring object and owner of the smart environment vulnerable to attacks. To ensure security, the context information should be known by authorized applications only. The security system should be able to authenticate devices and applications that want to participate in the smart environment, i.e., the authentication is not restricted to monitoring objects but include entities, such as devices, applications, libraries, and sensors and actuators. Thus, the smart environment only reacts according to the context information that is produced by trusted sensors and actuators.

The aim of this PhD project is to research technical security solutions to the above challenges in IoT areas. The project provides the opportunity to work with industry and various academic in area of cybersecurity.

The main duty of the PhD student is to devote to research studies, which includes participation in research projects and third cycle courses (not less than 80%). The PhD student is expected to collaborate with industrial partners in the project and other partners in the SIGS-CyberSec project. The doctoral project includes regular meetings with the project partners and participation in international conferences.

Information about doctoral studies: https://www.bth.se/eng/research/third-cycle-studies/

Eligibility requirements

To be employed as a PhD student, it is required that the applicant is or will be admitted to postgraduate education. Eligible for admission to postgraduate education is a person who has completed a degree at an advanced level in a technical, mathematical, or scientific field or who has otherwise acquired knowledge to be able to benefit from postgraduate education in the subject.

Specific entry requirements

Qualified for entry to third-cycle education is she/he who has taken a second-cycle qualification in the fields of engineering or mathematics-sciences or who in some other way has acquired knowledge to be able to profit by the third-cycle studies of the subject.

Meriting competencies and experience

In addition to the requirements described in the work description, eligibility requirements and assessment criteria for the position, the following degrees, competencies and experiences are considered meriting:

• MSc Degree in Computer Science, IT security, telecommunications, signal processing, applied mathematics or similar.
• Advanced knowledge in at least one of the following areas: cyber security, sensor networks, embedded systems, advanced sensors such as radar.
• Industry experience in establishing, evaluating and improving a sensor system.
• Knowledge of embedded sensor systems or embedded IT security.
• Proficiency in written and oral communication in English.
• Show the ability to work independently as well as in a team.

Place of employment: Karlskrona

Employment level: 100% (80% reseach, 20% teaching duties)

Salary: For Ph.D. students at BTH a standard salary scale is applied, which means that the salary is adjusted upwards as the student progresses through the program.

Commencement: To be agreed.

Duration: Temporary employment for up to 2 years of full-time research. The position may contain up to 20% other service, e.g., teaching, whereby the employment period can be extended to a maximum of 2.5 years.

Application deadline: 2024-04-07.

The application should include the following: 

• A statement of your background, knowledge and experience in the area(s) relevant to the position.
• A CV
• Diploma and transcript officiallyissued from the university. For educational documents from university studies, special rules may apply in some countries as to how they should be received. BTH follows UHR's recommendations, which are reflected on universityadmissions.se.
• Contact information for two references.
• The earliest date the candidate can start work.
• An appendix with current publications (if applicable).
• A link to your thesis (latest/highest degree).

You apply online through our recruitment system by clicking on the “apply” button.

If you have protected personal data, you should not register your application in our recruitment system. Instead, contact the HR specialist listed as the contact person in the advertisement for further instructions.

It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that the application is complete in accordance with the advertisement and instructions.

Instructions to applicants can be found at https://www.bth.se/eng/about-bth/vacancies-at-bth.

In case of different interpretations of the English and Swedish versions of this announcement, the Swedish version takes precedence.

Blekinge Institute of Technology, BTH, embraces diversity and welcomes applicants with varying backgrounds and experiences.
We work actively to take advantage of the qualities that diversity and an even gender distribution contribute to our operations.

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Contact person

URL to this pagehttps://www.bth.se/eng/about-bth/vacancies/?rmpage=job&rmjob=915&rmlang=UK