Department : Department Of Computer Science

Position Type : Research

The KTP Associate will lead a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project that is a collaboration between Durham University and Cievert, based in Gateshead. The Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) scheme helps businesses to innovate and grow through the aid of discipline specific academic expertise. It does this by linking them with an academic supervisory team and a researcher in a university to work on a specific project.

Working alongside the developer team based at Cievert, the KTP Associate will be involved in a strategic project to advance the follow up system for radiotherapy patients by enhancing the identification and treatments of potential side effects. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to gain extensive knowledge of developing advanced machine learning solutions for cutting edge problems including: sequential data modelling, mitigate the impact of imbalance classes, outlier detection, and reason under uncertainty. The candidate will apply their novel approaches on real-life problems and will be supported to publish in top conferences and journals such as NeuroIPS, ICML, TPAMI, etc.

Cievert is a digital health SME based in the North East of England.

We are using technology to revolutionise the way in which healthcare is delivered. Referrals are scribbled on paper, doctors have their consultations face-to-face, follow-up appointments are often clinically unnecessary and treatment outcomes are largely unknown. Whilst research into drugs and surgical techniques have improved significantly over the last 100 years, how healthcare is administered, delivered and how data is used to improve patient outcomes have changed little.

We are using data to improve how clinical services are delivered for the benefit of patients and healthcare providers, including the NHS. To date we have ensured cancer patients have received their treatment more quickly and more consistently. In the future we want to aid the earlier diagnosis of: disease diagnosis, disease progression and disease complication. The current dataset includes questionnaire data from cancer patients and patients’ diagnosis records among others.

Durham University is one of the world's top universities with strengths across the Arts and Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences. We are home to some of the most talented scholars and researchers from around the world who are tackling global issues and making a difference to people's lives. The successful candidate will be working with academics in the Department of Computer Science. The Department of Computer Science is ranked 6th for Computer Science, in the Complete University Guide 2019 (Durham University ranked 6th overall). The department holds an Athena Swan Bronze award, highlighting its commitment to promoting women in Science, Engineering and Technology.

Working as a KTP Associate provides a range of career development opportunities including:

• The opportunity to undertake a Higher Degree (e.g., Master of Research, PhD) if applicable 
• Attendance at two residential, one week, management training workshops 
• £5000 individual training budget to spend on personal development opportunities such as further training or conferences

You will have a strong academic background in machine learning and data analytics. You will need a good first degree in computer science, mathematics, engineering or a related field and ideally have a PhD (or strong alternative postgraduate experience) in Computer Science or a related subject (or be about to submit a PhD).

This post is full time, fixed term for 30 months.

Closes midday on : 17-May-2019