Research Centre: Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics
Level on Framework: Level 1
Post Duration: 12 months

As part of this role the researcher will be required to participate in the DCU Research Career Framework. This framework is designed to provide significant professional development opportunities to Researchers and offer the best opportunities in terms of a wider career path. The role may include teaching duties to assist with module delivery.

Background

Dublin City University (www.dcu.ie) is a research intensive, globally engaged, dynamic institution which has developed its own research specialists, established internationally recognized centres of excellence that have substantive collaborative links with leading universities and industrial partners. DCU is distinguished both by the quality and impact of its graduates and by its focus on the translation of knowledge into societal and economic benefit. Through its mission to transform lives and societies through education, research and innovation DCU acts as an agent of social, cultural and economic progress. DCU is Ireland’s fastest growing university and now hosts more than 17,000 students across its three academic campuses: DCU Glasnevin Campus, DCU St Patrick’s Campus and DCU All hallows campus. DCU has a strong track record in attracting both Irish and European Union research funding under Horizon 2020 (and all previous Framework Programmes), Marie Curie Actions and Erasmus. We offer a dynamic and internationally-focused environment in which to advance your academic career.

The Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics (http://www.Insight-centre.org) is an SFI funded Research Centre which brings together researchers from University College Dublin, NUI Galway, University College Cork, and Dublin City University, as well as other partner institutions, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), University of Limerick (UL), Maynooth University (MU) and Tyndall National Institute. It creates a critical mass of more than 400 researchers from Ireland's leading ICT clusters to carry out research on a new generation of data analytics technologies in a number of key application domain areas, such as Health and Human Performance, Smart Communities, Internet of Things, Enterprise and Services and Sustainability and Operations.

The €150m Centre is funded by Science Foundation Ireland and a wide range of industry and European Union partners. Insight's research focus encompasses a broad range of data analytics technologies from machine learning, decision analytics and social network analysis to linked data, recommender systems and the sensor web. Together, with more than 220 partner companies, Insight researchers are solving critical challenges in the areas of Connected Health and the Discovery Economy.

The Project and Role

Adaptive model building for Dynamic Decision Making:

Complex systems models are normally very resilient to continuous incremental changes. Providing accurate solutions for such systems is challenging and requires mechanisms to automatically adapt the underlying model when new data becomes available. We are interested in developing hybrid techniques that can learn dependencies and correlations between symbolic (knowledge-based) models and streaming data abstractions to incrementally learn better models as new data becomes available. Very diverse examples of such hybrid techniques are neural-symbolic computing and statistical relational learning.

We are seeking to recruit a post-doctoral researcher level 2-3 with experience in at least two of the following areas: deep representation learning, semantic modelling, explainable AI, graph analytics, probabilistic relational models, machine learning.

Principle Duties and Responsibilities

Reporting to his/her Principal Investigator the Postdoctoral Researcher will:

• Conduct research in the area(s) relevant to the project.
• Co-supervise and provide assistance / advice to PhD students working on similar topics.
• Support the Principal Investigator and the research group in the design and development of the specific research programme.
• Produce top quality journal and conference publications, in collaboration with the PIs.
• Support the development of proposals for research funding.
• Participate in Insight Centre activities, including industry showcases, annual reviews and industry and agency visits to the Insight labs.
• Carry out administrative work associated with the programme of research as necessary
• Other tasks relevant to successfully implementing the assigned research programme.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience Required

The ideal candidate will have completed a PhD in Computer Science with strong programming skills in Java, Python and at least one other programming language (C, C++, Scala, R,...).

In addition, ideally, the candidate should have;

• Proven research skills and evidence of scientific writing skills (e.g. publications) is required.
• Excellent written and oral proficiency in English (essential).
• Excellent written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills.
• Proven ability to prioritize workload and work to strict deadlines.
• Ability to work in a team and to take responsibility to contribute to the overall success of the team.
• Excellent analysis and problem-solving skills.
• Motivated and proactive attitude, willing to take ownership and initiative in all work assignments.
• Creative Thinking skills.
• Experience engaging in research collaborations with industry.
• Experience of designing data visualisation tools e.g. mashups
• Ability to work in a team-based environment developing state of the art software solutions on time and to specification.

Mandatory Training

The post holder will be required to undertake the following mandatory compliance training: Orientation, Health and Safety, Research Integrity and Intellectual Property and Data Protection training. Other training may need to be undertaken when required.

Candidates will be assessed on the following competencies:

Discipline knowledge and Research skills – Demonstrates knowledge of a research discipline and the ability to conduct a specific programme of research within that discipline.

Understanding the Research Environment – Demonstrates an awareness of the research environment (for example funding bodies) and the ability to contribute to grant applications.

Communicating Research – Demonstrates the ability to convey their research with their peers and the wider research community (for example presenting at conferences and publishing research in relevant journals) and the potential to teach and tutor students.

Managing & Leadership skills - Demonstrates the potential to manage a research project including the supervision of undergraduate students.