PhD studentship in data-centric programming at LFCS, University of Edinburgh

A fully-funded 3-year PhD studentship has become available in LFCS in data-centric programming.  Applications and expressions of interest are welcome now, with a closing date of April 28, 2014.

This studentship is partly funded by a EU FP7 project (DIACHRON) and partly by a Google Research Award.  The funding includes UK/EU tuition and fees, and a non-taxable stipend of approximately £13,800 per year for 3 years; a small amount of additional funding is available that may be used flexibly for equipment, travel or additional stipend support. 



The topic of the studentship is flexible within the general area of data-centric programming languages; possible topics include:

• Types and language design for integrating multiple data-centric programming models (e.g. language-integrated database query, GPU, or MapReduce programming)
• Extending bidirectional programming for synchronizing data across data models
• Language-based techniques for data curation and preservation, provenance tracking, or archiving
• Query and update techniques for longitudinal or provenance-aware queries.

A strong candidate for this studentship will have, or expect to receive, a first-class undergraduate degree or a strong performance in a master's degree. She or he should also be familiar with foundations of programming languages and databases, expert in at least one of these areas, and excited about research in this fast-moving area.

The student will benefit from LFCS's strong research groups in both Programming Languages and Databases, from Scotland's active programming languages research community, and from proximity to Edinburgh's Centres for Doctoral Training on Pervasive Parallelism or Data Science, which offer 4-year combined Master's + PhD programs and have strong links to industry forming the basis for internships. It may be possible for us to offer the successful applicant an additional year of funded study through one of these programs.

Application instructions

The application deadline is April 28, 2014.  Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis as they are received and an offer will be made to the strongest candidate as soon as possible after the closing date.  Due to restrictions on the funding, applicants with UK/EU citizenship or residence will be prioritized.  Please get in touch early in case of questions about the application process, project ideas or study in the UK or Edinburgh. 

Current applicants to other Edinburgh PhD programs can be considered for this funding.  If you are interested in this project and your application to another Edinburgh PhD program is currently under review, please contact me (jcheney@inf.ed.ac.uk) to discuss how to proceed.

To apply, please follow the instructions at:

http://wcms.inf.ed.ac.uk/lfcs/graduate%20study/apply/

About the University of Edinburgh and LFCS

The University of Edinburgh School of Informatics brings together world-class research groups in theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence and cognitive science. The School led the UK 2008 RAE rankings in volume of internationally recognised or internationally excellent research.

The Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science was established by Burstall, Milner and Plotkin in 1986, and is recognized worldwide for groundbreaking research on topics in programming languages, semantics, type theory, proof theory, algorithms and complexity, databases, security, and systems biology.  Programming Languages and Foundations is one of the largest research activities in LFCS, including 15 academic staff, 9 postdoctoral researchers and 6 current PhD students. We participate in a thriving PL research community across Scotland, with Scottish Programming Languages Seminars hosted every 3-4 months by PL groups at Glasgow, Strathclyde, Heriot-Watt, St. Andrews, Dundee and Edinburgh.

For more information about Edinburgh and studying here, see these pages:

• Explore Edinburgh
• Overview for prospective postgraduates 
• Programming Languages and Foundations at LFCS 
• Edinburgh Database Group