Fully Funded EPSRC PhD Scholarship: Machine learning for improving metal detection

Start date: July or October 2018

Subject areas: Computational Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering

This PhD scholarship is part of a major new 3-year interdisciplinary project on improving metal detection for the identification of security threats and will be part of a team that will also include post-doctoral researchers and collaborators from Swansea University’s Zienkiewicz Centre for Computational Engineering (ZCCE), University College London (UCL)’s Department of Mathematics and University of Manchester (UoM)’s School of Mathematics and School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. The project will be based in the ZCCE and the successful candidate’s first supervisor will be Dr P.D. Ledger who is also the principal investigator of the project.

The aim of the project will be to improve the identification and location of hidden security threats using machine learning techniques. The student will have access to Swansea University College of Engineering’s new high performance computer cluster which has 73 nodes, each comprising 28 cores. They will also be provided with a computer to interface these facilities. It is expected that the student will work closely alongside the other team members and attend research meetings as well as presenting at conferences and workshops. The student will also write technical reports describing their research progress in form that can be submitted to peer reviewed academic journals.

Eligibility

Candidates should have a master’s degree (MEng, MMath, MPhys, MSc or MSci) in Engineering, Mathematics or Physics. They should have achieved either 1st class or 2.1 undergraduate degree and a distinction at postgraduate level (if appropriate).

Candidates are required to have expertise in numerical algorithms for the solution of partial differential equations (e.g. Finite elements, boundary elements) and be proficient in programming in one or more of the following: MATLAB, Python, Fortran, C/C++. Knowledge and experience of (computational) electromagnetics is also desirable.

The ideal candidate should also be an effective team worker and enthusiastic about working closely with end users and industry.

Due to funding restrictions, this scholarship is open to UK candidates only.