Jobs

NO VACANCIES

We are regularly recruiting post-doctoral researchers and PhD students who have an interest in addressing the challenges of adaptive security and privacy. We expect the successful candidates to be highly motivated, collaborative, independent, and with outstanding CVs. If you are interested in finding out more please contact us at info@asap-project.eu. Watch this page for announcements of specific vacancies and deadlines.

Previous vacancy: Postdoctoral Researcher/Research Fellow (Lero, Ireland)

Two postdoctoral researcher positions (12-18 months) are available immediately at Lero – The Irish Software Research Centre, based at the University of Limerick.

Prospective applicants should read the “job description” document and apply through the University of Limerick website (click on “Vacancies and search for job reference 016908).

Closed date: noon, 21 January 2016.

Previous vacancy: Research Software Engineer (The Open University, UK)

We are seeking to employ a Research Software Engineer to work closely with a small team of security and privacy researchers to build robust and usable prototype software to support new research on ‘adaptive privacy’, particularly in relation to online social networks and smart devices. You will be based in the software engineering and design group at the Open University.

You will have knowledge and experience of building web applications, particularly those around online social networks (like Facebook), and designing and implementing complex algorithms, particularly those involving large time series data (such as data generated by smart energy meters). You will also possess technical/project management experience and excellent organisational skills.

Prospective applicants should read the “further particulars” document and apply through the Open University recruitment website.

Closed date: noon, 18 January 2016.

The Department of Computing & Communications at The Open University is also advertising a Lectureship in Computing & Communications.

Closed date: noon, 14 January 2016.

In general, successful postdoc candidates will be expected to have completed their PhD by the time they start, and will already have an excellent research profile and potential for continued achievement.

Successful candidates will have experience in one or more of the following areas: security and privacy, software engineering for adaptive systems, mobile and ubiquitous systems, and/or human-computer interaction. Particularly desirable skills include machine learning, requirements engineering, access control, logics and calculi for for security and mobility (e.g., deontic logic, ambient calculus), usable security and privacy (including interaction design), and digital forensics.. Skills in developing prototype tools and demonstrators will also be an advantage.

Successful candidates will have an opportunity to work both independently and as part of a collaborative, interdisciplinary research team, across Lero (Ireland) and the Open University (UK).

Successful candidates will also have opportunities to co-supervise PhD research students.

Prospective candidates are encouraged to contact Bashar Nuseibeh before applying (Bashar.Nuseibeh@open.ac.uk), with a CV and statement of research interests (1-2 pages).

Some of the areas we plan to investigate in the project include:

Mobility and ambiance: Mobility and distribution can have a profound impact on how, where and when information can be accessed and by whom. However, as technology and software become more pervasive (e.g., life logging / personal informatics devices), it is unlikely that a single structure or representation will be sufficient to capture the security problem at hand. The challenge will be to investigate how software problems should be structured to exploit the computational capabilities of both mobile devices and their surrounding (ambient) environment.
Security and function: Users expect their systems to deliver functionality while protecting information and other assets. Expressing security requirements as constraints on functional requirements may allow the software engineer to consider security issues explicitly while considering other functional requirements. Questions of trade off between function and security are key challenges in this context.
Privacy and awareness: Privacy is highly context-dependent, and its personal nature means that individuals will make appropriate information disclosure decisions only if properly informed of the recipients of the information and of the risks of private information leakage. Questions of how best to provide users with the necessary awareness of the consequences of information disclosure are key challenges in this context.
Learning and interaction: Design time determination of all possible adaptive system behaviours is generally not feasible, so the ability to adapt dynamically (at runtime) is necessary. The challenges of automatic adaptation will be investigated within a framework of learning – our aim is to develop software that deploys machine-‐learning technology to evolve its protection requirements (e.g., access control policies) in response to actual user behaviour. This requires that we investigate and develop new ways for users to interact with ubiquitous computing systems in order to make it practical for them to supervise the learning process.
Security and human behaviour: Although engineering of adaptive software may be viewed as primarily a technical concern, security is not only a technical challenge, as the social context and human factors that determine perceptions of security and protection through deterrence, may be equally critical. As part of our overall research programme, we will undertake user studies that shed light on security and privacy requirements in a variety of social settings.