Fully-funded MSc by Research (Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Food Technology)

A 12-month MSc by Research position is available in the School of Computer Science at the University of Lincoln UK. The position is fully funded, including tuition fees, a bursary of £10,000 per year and participation in international conferences and other activities as required by the project. The work in this project may result in additional funding, allowing the studentship to be extended to a PhD (since the MSc by Research award at Lincoln can also be credited as the first year of a 3-year PhD programme).

The project will investigate state-of-the-art Computer Vision and Machine Learning techniques for analysing food and, in particular, field bean produce for human consumption in the presence of adult Bruchus rufimanus (bean seed beetle). The research will focus on the emerging computer vision problem of learning distinctive image features for fine-grained image classification, which refers to the task of classifying objects that share very similar shape or visual appearance. The successful candidate will engage in collaboration within an ambitious team, and benefit from excellent support to produce and disseminate original research contributions.

The School of Computer Science at the University of Lincoln has leading expertise and strong collaborations on systems development for food analysis. This project is in collaboration with PGRO (The Processors & Growers Research Organisation) and industrial partner Frontier Agriculture Ltd.

You should have a Bachelors or Masters degree in Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, Mathematics or Physics. You should have excellent mathematical and coding skills (C++ and/or MATLAB).

The School of Computer Science at the University of Lincoln scored highly in the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008) with 85% of its outputs ranked at international quality or better with 15% ranked world-leading. The School provides a stimulating environment for academic research, and is based on the picturesque waterfront campus in the vibrant city of Lincoln in high quality, newly developed facilities. The research facilities available within the School of Computer Science include well-appointed research laboratories and office spaces with state-of-the-art computing facilities for an international community of academics, researchers and graduate students.