Join our research group!
We are always looking for motivated researchers to join our team and work with us on a variety of projects.
Details of specific funded positions we currently have available are shown below. We also consider some open applications and would be happy to investigate different funding options, please find further details below. There is also a section about the nature of the PhD program that I would strongly encourage anyone to read before applying. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I currently do not have funding or space to host interns.
Specific positions currently available..
PhD Position: Machine Learning for Structural Damage Detection in Psoriatic Arthritis Hand Radiographs
Working with the CAMERA research team, the CAMERA Studio and the wider MyWorld project
More details..
Three 2.5 Year MyWorld Post-Doctoral Research Positions
Working with the CAMERA Studio team and the MyWorld Research team on 4D Capture, Lightfields and Virtual Production
More details..Is a PhD Right for You?
A PhD is very different to undergraduate or masters-level university courses; it is a training program to develop independent researchers. This can be a hugely rewarding experience if it matches your aspirations and your personality but it is certainly not the only way to pursue a technical career: so how do you know if it’s right for you?
In my experience, people who get the most out of a PhD often have, or seek to develop, the following traits:
- Strong self-motivation: Ultimately, you are your own boss for the most part. There will typically be many opportunities to interact, discuss and collaborate with other students and researchers (both within and externally to the university); some of the time you will be working on a project led by someone else but your PhD project is your own! We will offer feedback and guidance (more so at the start) but by the end the goal is to be an independent researcher!
- Find learning and discovery inherently rewarding: A research project is a long-term activity with many ups and downs along the way - if it was easy or we knew something would work then it wouldn’t be research! On the other hand, long-term rewards can be demotivating (i.e. we only know if this works well after several months). A great way to balance this out is to have other short-term reward structures as well: regular hobbies and activities out of work are obviously important, but within work, you can always guarantee to learn something new each day. If you find this the case then the research journey is also rewarding as well as the ultimate destination!
- Work at both high- and low-level: A PhD will invariably involve developing precise and in-depth knowledge requiring much attention to detail. It is also important, however, to keep track of the high-level view of how your work fits into the broader research community: How does your work fit with other research topics? What is the long-term vision? What might the future impacts be on society? How can we ensure our work creates the greatest benefit to all?
- Open and collaborative team-players: Society often portrays the ideal academic as a lone genius but the reality is that we achieve much more by working together in a collaborative and open manner. Flat and networked hierarchies (rather than a pyramid structure) are the most common in our research area - sometimes you will be a project leader and sometimes you will be a collaborator with someone else leading. Being able move easily, and work comfortably, under both these situations is a key strength.
Common questions:
- Will I work alone all the time? Whilst you are leading your project, that doesn’t mean you are working alone! We strongly encourage students to collaborate and work together plus you will be getting guidance from advisors and supervisors (particularly at the start of your project). Working with researchers across different levels of seniority is also really helpful to cover the range of advice from technical implementation questions right up to high-level aims and vision.
- How difficult is the process? This is a tricky question and might not be the right way to look at it. A PhD requires: (i) technical skills (e.g. maths and programming), (ii) research skills (e.g. scientific innovation and methodology), (iii) professional skills (e.g. writing, presenting, time management and project planning). Everyone comes from a unique background and will be at different stages across the three areas. By working as part of a research group, there is the opportunity to learn from each other where you have different strengths. By the end of the PhD, the aim is to be competent in all three! I can guarantee there’s always more to learn, each of us will have a different journey through a PhD but the goal is to set ourselves up for a life-time of learning and research.
- Will I be given goals and deadlines? As above, a PhD is training to become and independent researcher so it is vital to take ownership of your project; you are also the project manager for your work. Obviously, there are many people to offer help and guidance, especially when starting out. Every researcher develops their own style in terms of project planning and time-management; you will be responsible for making sure your project progresses. Most internal deadlines are by mutual agreement with your supervisor but there are also some fixed deadlines in terms of formal report submission and feedback from the university (including the final thesis) as well as publication deadlines for external venues such as journals and conferences (where work receives peer-review from other researchers).
Preparing an application:
The application process for most PhD programmes will ask you to prepare a research statement or proposal. This should always be the start of a dialogue with a potential supervisor so don’t worry that it needs to be a detailed plan. What is important is, firstly, that you capture what interests you, i.e. self-motivation is key so it’s important to work on projects that you find interesting and on subjects where you find learning rewarding. Secondly, potential supervisors want to see that you have a background, understanding of the topic area through reading or having spent some time investigating. This can be at high-level - please don’t think you need to know all the technical details or have all the answers (it’s good advice not to assert more understanding than you have!). Remember the high- and low-level points above! People often forget to consider the bigger picture and narrow down to a detailed project too quickly. Equally, you do need to consider how we might be able to make progress and not just have a grand vision; in essence, the best proposals have a balance of the two.
It is worth noting the three areas from the “How difficult is the process?” question above; we are looking to see that you understand these topics and consider all of them, not just one in isolation. Sometimes people feel they need to write a large amounts but we are all busy people so being targetted and concise will be appreciated. It is also important to provide supporting evidence rather than assertions. For example, remember to provide citations or references to books/papers/video lectures/other sources that you have used to form your ideas. If you are talking about other aspects, e.g. research skills, providing concrete examples of evidence is also much more important. For example, “I spent x weeks over the summer working on a research placement” or “I had a go at writing my own implementation of this paper or algorithm”. As research involves practical skills as well as theory, we are always interested in hearing about project work, particularly where you have taken initiative or lead the project yourself; it’s not just all about exams!
Open Applications
The group considers open applications for 3.5 year PhD positions from high quality candidates who satisfy RCUK residency requirements (the departmental details are available here) as well as through the Centre for Doctoral Training in Accountable, Responsible and Transparent AI (ART-AI).
Industrial Contacts
We have access to a range of industrial contacts that will be available to interested students. These include: Foundry, The Imaginarium, DNEG, Anthropics, Niantic, Adobe, nVidia and Google. There is often the chance to go on a paid internship to work in a research department in the same field for students who demonstrate sufficient ability and motivation; these will usually lead to further collaboration and shared authorship of papers.
Requirements
The University requires students to have a first or upper second class honours degree with some further requirements for non-native English speakers (details available here).
Candidate without a Masters level course in computer vision, computer graphics, machine learning, applied mathematics, or a strongly correlated field would have to provide strong justification (and evidence) that they would be able to handle the maths and programming necessary to complete a PhD in this field.
Programming experience is a particular advantage, specifically proficiency in numerical programming in Python / C++ or similar. All of the techniques we use build on Linear Algebra and it would be desirable for the candidate to have experience in applied mathematics / numerical methods.
Applying!
If you meet the requirements above and are interested in vision / graphics / machine learning then please get touch by contacting me and putting “PHD POSITION” in capitals at the start of the subject line of the email; please include a copy of your CV and feel free to include your motivations for doing a PhD and any questions you would like to ask me. I very much look forward to hearing from you.