The Alan Turing Institute is the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. The Institute is named in honour of the scientist Alan Turing and its mission is to make great leaps in data science and artificial intelligence research in order to change the world for the better.

At The Alan Turing Institute, the AI programme’s goal is to advance world-class research into artificial intelligence, its applications and its implications for society, building on the wealth of expertise and knowledge across our academic network. Our programme expertise draws on the cross-disciplinarity at the heart of the Turing; bringing together technical experts to forge ahead with breakthroughs in fundamental AI research and its applications, with social scientists, ethicists, legal experts, industry, and policy-makers who are considering the implications of AI in real-world applications.

The programme will contribute to leadership around this area, drawing on our links with industry and government to help ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of scientific innovation while building an ethical and regulatory framework for the use of AI that prevents misuse and inappropriate discrimination.

Programme Director Adrian Weller has recently received a grant as Co-Investigator (Co-I) to be part of the EU Horizon European Lighthouse on Secure and Safe AI project (‘ELSA’). The goal of ELSA is to create a European virtual centre of excellence for safe and secure AI that will address major challenges hampering the deployment of AI technologies. Research will focus on “technical robustness and safety”, “privacy preserving techniques and infrastructures” and “human agency and oversight”. Efforts to detect, prevent, and mitigate threats and enable recovery from harm focus on 3 grand challenges:

1. Robustness guarantees and certification
2. Private and robust collaborative learning at scale
3. Human-in-the-loop decision making: Integrated governance to ensure meaningful oversight which cut across 6 use cases: health, autonomous driving, robotics, cybersecurity, multimedia, and document intelligence.

ELSA will focus on machine-learning-based methods and especially deep learning, which form the foundation for many modern AI applications. Throughout the project, robust technical approaches will be integrated with legal and ethical principles supported by meaningful and effective governance architectures to nurture and sustain the development and deployment of AI technology that serves and promotes foundational European values.

For more details about the project, please see elsa: European Lighthouse on Secure and Safe AI (elsa-ai.eu).

ROLE PURPOSE

The Turing are hiring a Research Associate to support and enable the delivery of parts of the ELSA project for which Turing will be funded. The successful candidate will work with the Programme Director, Adrian Weller at the Turing and the other ELSA project partners.

The role will develop new theory, methods and tools to help enable the secure and safe development and deployment of AI systems. An area of focus will be reliable tools for AI assurance to help monitor and enforce desired properties of systems in the context of ELSA project use cases, coordinating with legal expert Co-Investigators on the project, and partners to help develop technical solutions to ethical governance challenges raised. Work we will advance includes developing robust measures of transparency for fairness, incorporating methods to ensure appropriate privacy is preserved, and exploring scalable approaches to incorporating human knowledge and priors in the loop for effective human-machine team decisions.

DUTIES AND AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

• Develop and apply state-of-the-art approaches for fairness, transparency, robustness and/or privacy to tackle real-world-inspired research challenges of the ELSA project. These might include:
• Robust methods for practically useful transparency, examining the extent of leakage of private information
• Appropriate methods to monitor and mitigate bias and unfairness
• Ways to improve practical human-machine team performance
• Formal verification and validation
• Scope, pilot and deliver high quality research activity under the direction of the Programme Director
• Drive collaboration with academic experts and broader research partners from across the Turing and the ELSA community
• Publish and disseminate high-quality research papers and publications detailing research output and project case-studies.
• To participate in and to develop internal and external partnerships, for example, to identify sources of funding, generate income, obtain projects, or build relationships for future activities.

• Research Associate level: PhD in Mathematics, Computer Science or a closely related discipline.
• Research Assistant level: Near completion of a PhD or equivalent level of professional qualification in Mathematics, Computer Science or closely related discipline.
• A solid background in one or more of the following: technical approaches to fairness, transparency, robustness or privacy; probabilistic models; human-machine teams
• Experience in design, development and implementation of research software tools and libraries, such as Python, Java, GPU programming (Tensorflow, PyTorch, etc), symbolic verification (SAT, SMT)
• Track record of the ability to initiate, develop and deliver high quality research aligned with the research strategy indicated by the PI and any industrial stakeholders and to publish in leading journals and conferences.
• Hands-on experience with Machine Learning methods
• Experience in publishing research papers, code libraries or technical reports and giving presentations or classes on technical subjects
• Track record of outstanding research and in delivering impact appropriate to career stage

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

If you are interested in this opportunity, please click the apply button below. You will need to register on the applicant portal and complete the application form including your CV and covering letter. If you have questions about the role or would like to apply using a different format, please contact us at [email protected].

CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: 09 October 2022 at 23:59

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

This full-time post is offered on a 3-year fixed-term basis. The annual salary is £38,850 - £46,200 (depending on experience) plus excellent benefits, including flexible working and family friendly policies, https://www.turing.ac.uk/work-turing/why-work-turing/employee-benefits

Candidates who have not yet been officially awarded their PhD will be appointed as Research Assistant at a salary of £36,236 per annum.

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

The Alan Turing Institute is committed to creating an environment where diversity is valued and everyone is treated fairly. In accordance with the Equality Act, we welcome applications from anyone who meets the specific criteria of the post regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

We are committed to building a diverse community and would like our leadership teal to reflect this. We therefore welcome applications from the broadest spectrum of backgrounds.

Reasonable adjustments to the interview process will be made for any candidates with a disability.

Please note all offers of employment are subject to continuous eligibility to work in the UK and satisfactory pre-employment security screening which includes a DBS Check.

Full details on the pre-employment screening process can be requested from [email protected].

If you are applying for more than one role at the Turing, please note that only one Cover Letter can be visible on your profile at one time. If you wish to apply for multiple roles and do not want to overwrite your existing Cover Letter, please apply for the role using the button below and forward your additional cover letter directly to [email protected] quoting the job title.

The Alan Turing Institute is based at the British Library, in the heart of London’s Knowledge Quarter.

From 01 March 2022 we will trial a Hybrid Working Model for an initial six-month trial period. During this period, staff will be expected to work at our British Library office for a number of days per month, dependent on the requirements of the role. As a guide, we anticipate this will be between 2-4 days per month, but the hiring manager will be able to confirm this during the interview.