Fully Funded PhD Scholarship in building privacy-secure computer vision solutions for assistive supports for older adults at home

Application(s) are invited from suitably qualified candidates for full-time funded PhD scholarship(s) starting from March 2024 affiliated to the College of Science & Engineering at the University of Galway.

University of Galway

Located in the vibrant cultural city of Galway in the west of Ireland, the University of Galway has a distinguished reputation for teaching and research excellence

For information on moving to Ireland please see www.euraxess.ie

Detailed Project Description

This is one of 3 Ph.D. positions on the PRIVI-SENSE project to reinvent today’s computational imaging as a privacy-secured method of sensing human subjects. Positions are available from Jan 2024. You can find out more about our work here.

This Ph.D. research topic will explore the extension of existing physiological, emotional and cognitive sensation based on conventional imaging, to employ methods based on multi-modal (NIR, LWIR and Neuromorphic) imaging data. A key challenge here will be to better correlate these involuntary behavioural patterns of a subject with their cognitive and emotional state. A secondary objective will be to investigate the potential of multi-modal imaging to achieve physiological sensing of, for example, a subject’s pulse rate. Other behavioural patterns, e.g. eye-movements or facial tics, could be linked to underlying physiological conditions.

A key end goal is to advance the use of smart-sensing in support of the well-being of home workers and older adults at home – a field where research is growing following the broad adoption of home-working during the pandemic. Also, this research topic may encompass speech analysis to enhance computer-vision based sensing. (C3I has built significant know-how on child speech analysis and synthesis in the past 3 years). Note that C3I works with a number of industry partners and there will be opportunities for industry placements as part of this scholarship.

A more complete description of the project work and related Ph.D. and postdoctoral opportunities is available here:  https://www.universityofgalway.ie/c3i/vacancies/

Living allowance (Stipend): €22,000 annual stipend (tax-free). Tuition fees are paid.

Academic Entry Requirements: Candidates must have a top honours grade in Electronic Engineering or Computer Science and completion of a relevant Masters degree or 5-year degree program is desirable. Candidates should be highly motivated and should have a strong background in programming, computer vision methods, and neural-network (NN) based data analysis.

In addition prospective candidates should have some background and experience in:   

• State-of-Art Neural Architectures/Models for Computer Vision and/or Speech Processing
• Fine-tuning or customization of one or more Neural Network Models (i.e. significant re-training or re-programming of the neural model)

 Also Desirable to have experience in one or more of the following:

• Designing and running experiments with well-defined research outcomes
• Working with complex neural architectures (e.g. GANs, Transformers, Diffusion Models, etc)
• Working with multi-modal imaging data (e.g. NIR, LWIR or Event Cameras).
• Working on advanced data augmentation or learned augmentation techniques to support re-training of neural models
• Techniques for implementation of neural architectures on embedded systems or in hardware (e.g. FPGA, tinyML, network compression, sparsification, etc)

To Apply for the Scholarship: Send e-mail directly to peter.corcoran@universityofgalway.ie  marking “PRIVI-SENSE Ph.D. #1” in the e-mail. Kindly apply for the opportunity best aligned with your experience & interests. DO NOT apply for more than one position.

Contact Name: Prof. Peter Corcoran

Application Deadline: open until all positions filled

Primary Supervisor: Prof. Peter Corcoran