UE07: £40,247.00 - £47,874.00 Per Annum.
CSE / School of Informatics.
Fixed Term Contract - 2 Years.
Full Time - 35 Hours Per Week.
The Opportunity:
This post will be part of the Centre for AI for Assistive Autonomy, a mission-driven research centre established using a UKRI Turing AI World Leading Researcher Fellowship awarded to Prof Subramanian Ramamoorthy.
The post-holder will be the lead researcher anchoring laboratory activities in the area of surgical robotics addressing two parallel concerns. Firstly, the post holder will work on simulation and skill quantification methods to understand human expert skill in detail, enabling improved training and providing the basis for subsequent automation. Secondly, the post holder will develop new methods for task level autonomy in surgical robotic systems. This represents one of the main application themes within the centre, alongside assistive technology for activities of daily living, and autonomous vehicles. This work benefits from parallel work of a foundations team, whose focus will be on fundamental investigations into generative modelling of the full stack of human behaviour, from sensorimotor control to higher level cognitive decision making, to enable the development of person-centred and teachable autonomous systems.
The post holder will be supervised by the Centre Director (Ramamoorthy), with input on the clinical side from Prof Shervanthi Homer-Vanniasinkam (UCL and Leeds Teaching Hospital) and Prof Paul Brennan (NHS Lothian and University of Edinburgh). The post holder will also have the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues in a wide range of specialties across the University, including in machine learning and vision (e.g. Fisher, Mac Aodha, Bilen, Sevilla-Lara, Vergari), probabilistic programming (e.g. Narayanaswamy, Kammar, Belle), natural language understanding and interaction (e.g. Lascarides, Lapata, Gal), computational cognitive science and neuroscience (e.g. Lucas, Hennig, Nolan, Rajendran), as well as in robotics and neurotechnology (e.g. Vijayakumar, Nazarpour) and engineering of novel sensing and devices (Prodromakis, Koutsos, Amjadi). Beyond the university, the Centre will pursue collaborations with international teams including at The University of Texas at Austin (Stone), Stanford University (Kochenderfer), University of Bremen (Beetz) and Monash University (Burke).
The Centre will also have a strong industrial partner network, including Fourier Intelligence, Honda Research Europe, Shadow Robot, Sony Europe and other organisations who will be engaged in the Centre’s work at all stages, with the expectation that this network grows over time as the Centre’s work grows and begins to have broader impacts.
The central purpose of the job is to carry out research on AI for surgical robotics, covering two parallel concerns. Firstly, the post holder will develop methods to understand human surgical skill. Drawing on data from novel simulation and sensing systems, and other data available from partners (e.g. Brennan and collaborators), the post holder will develop methods for skill quantification. This involves the creative application of robot learning methods, including learning from demonstration and inverse optimal control methods, to characterise human expert skills in increasingly more complex surgical task domains. Secondly, building on this, the post holder will devise methods for task level autonomy in surgical robotics.
This work will build on an established track record (Ramamoorthy) and facilities available within the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, and also draw on know-how and resources from the Leeds Teaching Hospital and UCL Bioengineering facilities (Homer-Vanniasinkam).
The candidate is expected to take intellectual ownership of core scientific questions in this space, developing new ideas and driving collaborative projects towards significant publications, leveraging the expertise of the supervision team and other scientific collaborators.
It is also expected that the post holder will contribute to the development of new assets in the form of experimental robotic systems and demonstrators. These will be expected to make use of data and model assets created by other Centre researchers.
The duties associated with this post will include:
Your skills and attributes for success:
Essential:
Desirable:
Click to view a copy of the full job description (opens new browser tab)
Application Information:
Please ensure you include the following documents in your application:
- CV
- Cover letter
Contact details for informal enquiries: Ram Ramamoorthy, [email protected]
As a valued member of our team you can expect: A competitive salary
Championing equality, diversity and inclusion
The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality.
Prior to any employment commencing with the University you will be required to evidence your right to work in the UK. Further information is available on our right to work webpages (opens new browser tab)
Key dates to note
The closing date for applications is 10 January 2025.
Unless stated otherwise the closing time for applications is 11:59pm GMT. If you are applying outside the UK the closing time on our adverts automatically adjusts to your browsers local time zone.
The University is able to sponsor the employment of international workers in this role. If successful, an international applicant requiring sponsorship to work in the UK will need to satisfy the UK Home Office’s English Language requirements and apply for and secure a Skilled Worker Visa.
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