School of Computing

Location: Canterbury
Salary: £34,804 to £39,152 per annum
Grade: Grade 7
Post Type: Full Time
Contract Type: Fixed Term - Ends 31/08/2024
Release Date: Wednesday 19 May 2021
Closing Date: 23.59 hours BST on Sunday 20 June 2021 (unless otherwise stated)
Interview Date: Thursday 08 July 2021
Reference: CEMS-058-21

The School of Computing are looking to appoint a highly motivated Research Associate to work on the project “Machine Learning to Unravel Anti-Ageing Compounds”, funded by the Biotechnology and Biosciences Research Council (BBSRC), UK.

This is an interdisciplinary bioinformatics project, involving the application of machine learning algorithms to data about drugs / chemical compounds and the biology of ageing.

The post is part of the Computational Intelligence research group at the School of Computing, and will have a duration of up to 3 years.
The successful candidate will play a key role in the project, by performing preprocessing of drug-related and ageing-related data for machine learning, applying supervised machine learning algorithms to such data, and analysing the results.

This research will be done in close collaboration with a clinical professor and external biologists with expertise on ageing.

As Research Associate you will:
• perform the preprocessing of drug-related and ageing-related data, creating datasets suitable for the application of machine learning algorithms
• apply advanced supervised machine learning algorithms to the created datasets
• perform computational experiments to evaluate the performance of the machine learning algorithms and analyse the results
• collaborate with a clinical professor and external biologist experts on ageing throughout the project
• write papers for publication and help to disseminate the outcomes of the project in general e.g. delivering seminars at other institutions and presentations in conferences

To be successful in this role you will have/be:
• a PhD degree in Computer Science or a related area (e.g. another area involving computer programming), or to be in the final stages of obtaining such a qualification, such as expecting to submit the thesis before September 2021 (the preferred start date)
• experience in programming languages (e.g., Python, Java, C/C++, or R)
• research experience in machine learning
• the ability to work independently

The School of Computing is a welcoming and diverse environment that has been recognised with a Bronze Athena SWAN award. Our staff and students come from all over the world, and we are proud of our friendly and inclusive culture. We support colleagues through a number of family-friendly policies, including a core hours policy and the right to apply for flexible working, and support for staff returning from periods of extended absence (for example, parental leave).

Please see the links below to view the full job description and to apply. For further information regarding the application process please contact The Resourcing Team on jobs@kent.ac.uk quoting ref number: CEMS-058-21