Department of Information Security

Location:  Egham
Salary:  £36,438 per annum - including London Allowance
Post Type:  Full Time
Closing Date:  23.59 hours BST on Monday 18 October 2021
Reference:  0921-363 Fixed-Term, Full-Time 

Applications are invited for the post of Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Information Security Department.

The successful candidates will join the SCC supporting its research, training and commercialisation activities. The position is Fixed-Term, full-time for a period of 36 months, starting 1^st November 2021 (or shortly after).

The SCC was established in 2002 and has an impressive track record in high quality research, teaching, industrial engagement and commercialisation activities. The centre has recently coordinated the acquisition of an extensive list of equipment including: Nvidia Jetson/Xavier AI development platforms, Snapdragon 365 mobile phone dev boards, RISC-V dev boards, autonomous vehicles/drones, and a variety of positioning sensors (GNNSS/velodyne LiDAR). This is combined with a comprehensive selection of analytics equipment (PicoScopes, RF-probes, and JTAG interfaces) that equips us for high-impact research activities, making the lab a positive environment to further one's research career. Members of the SCC team have a broad range of information security skills and expertise in payment systems, mobile device security, IoTs, Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), Distributed Ledgers, automotive and drone security. We are currently contributing members of a Horizon 2020 project on Mobile Forensics Security. We are also expanding our research directions into Media Broadcasting Security. Furthermore, we have also successfully commercialised our Explainable AI (Seclea) solutions and we have been shortlisted through our Tensorcrypt solution in the final 14 pre-seed commercialisation solutions under the CyberASAP year 5 programme.  

The SCC is seeking to appoint a highly motivated Postdoctoral Research Fellow to strengthen our existing research areas including Trusted Execution Environments security (with an emphasis on side channel attacks), Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (i.e. automotive, avionics/drone and payment systems), along with expanding our relatively newly created Media Broadcasting Security research thread. More specifically the post holder will have to participate and lead our research and funding efforts in Media Broadcasting Security. 

Furthermore, the role requires close collaboration with our mobile phone forensics research project and explore countermeasures to mobile phone threats. 

The SCC is utilising its commercialisation experience and it is expected that the post holder will engage with our student talent, industrial partners and SCC staff in strengthening the SCC’s funding and commercialisation activities. We would welcome applicants with relevant academic and industrial experience. 

The SCC is utilising its commercialisation experience and it is expected that the post holder will a engage with our student talent, industrial partners and SCC staff in strengthening the SCC’s funding and commercialisation activities. We would welcome applicants with relevant academic and industrial experience. 

The post will involve working with the SCC team in applying multidisciplinary information security skills and expertise in the aforementioned areas. The holder of this post will be expected to help produce independent and original research, to submit publications to refereed journals, and to work together with and contribute to the supervision of UROP projects and UG, MSc and PhD students. More importantly, the role requires the development of funding applications. 

Requirements: Applicants should possess (or close to obtaining) a PhD degree relevant to the project’s research areas (e.g., Information Security, Computer Science), and be fluent in English. The ideal candidate should have a strong research track record in an area relevant to: i) Trusted Execution Environments (TEE), ii) Media Broadcasting Security, iii) Trustworthy Autonomous Systems, and a proven ability to find innovative solutions. Furthermore, the ideal candidate should be self-motivated, possess software development skills, and should have prior experience with programming embedded systems and mobile devices. In addition to supporting the aforementioned research areas, the position duties will also involve leading and contributing the development of novel research ideas and research grant proposals. Experience in developing research/grant proposals will, therefore, be highly valued.

In return we offer a highly competitive rewards and benefits package including: 

• Generous annual leave entitlement 
• Training and Development opportunities
• Pension Scheme with generous employer contribution 
• Various schemes including Cycle to Work, Season Ticket Loans and help with the cost of Eyesight testing. 
• Free parking 

The post is based in Egham, Surrey where the College is situated in a beautiful, leafy campus near to Windsor Great Park and within commuting distance from London.

The successful candidate will work under the direction of Prof. Konstantinos Markantonakis (PI) and Dr Darren Hurley-Smith (CI) from the Smart card and IoT Security Centre. For an informal discussion about the post, please contact Prof. Konstantinos Markantonakis, at k.markantonakis@rhul.ac.uk.

To view further details of this post and to apply please visit https://jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk. For queries on the application process the Human Resources Department can be contacted by email at: recruitment@rhul.ac.uk

Please quote the reference: 0921-363 

Closing Date:   Midnight, 18th October 2021 

Interview Date: TBC 

Further details:    Job description and Person Specification