PhD in dataset distillation and privatisation for the nuclear decommissioning industry

Academic Institution

This is an opportunity to join the Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing at the University of Surrey. This is the largest such UK institute, and is ranked 1st for Computer vision research in the UK and 3rd in Europe (csrankings.org). The supervisory team includes award winning and world renowned academics, with the applicant joining a large and tightly knit research team of 10+ peers working on various related topics (http://personalpages.surrey.ac.uk/s.hadfield/).

Role Description

The sharing of data assets is a major administrative challenge, often causing a roadblock to collaboration and research. This is especially true in sensitive domains like the Nuclear sector, where researchers can struggle to find the data needed to train machine learning models.

This PhD studentship project will develop an AI-driven “secure-by-design” approach to dataset privatisation and distillation, enabling the sharing data assets within the NDA estate, as well as other agencies and academic partners. To achieve this, a framework will be developed that can run on the NDA secure infrastructure, to create a purely synthetic dataset that both obfuscates and compresses while remaining as true as possible to the sensitive historical data.

Industrial Sponsorship and Research Impact

This project is funded by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (https://ndagroup.careers/about-the-nda-group/). NDA are a government organisation broadly responsible for the safe and sustainable management of historical nuclear sites and materials. This studentship is an ideal opportunity to start-up a career in this important, innovative and growing sector. The project plan includes two separate funded internships, deploying research solutions at sites within the NDA estate, as well as numerous outreach and scale-up activities. This is designed to ensure that the student sees real-world impact from the developments during their PhD studies, and to put them in the best possible position to transfer their research skills into industry after the studentship.

Eligibility and Qualifications

• Open to candidates who pay UK/home rate fees. See UKCISA for further information.
• Masters or strong Bachelros degree in a relevant field (Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, AI, etc.)
• Strong programming skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• You will also need to pass any relevant DBS, BPSS, ATAS or other required checks to achieve the necessary security clearance to undertake this project.

Apply at https://www.surrey.ac.uk/fees-and-funding/studentships/secure-design-datasets-distillation-and-privatisation-future-collaboration