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Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.
The role
Are you interested in applying cutting-edge Machine Learning/AI techniques to real-world problems? The Scalable computing group are focused on applying Machine Learning/AI and visualisation to real-world problems – highlighted by the fact that the National Innovation Centre for Data is a spin-out from the group.
Further details about the group can be found here. We have secured funding through Innovate UK to work with the company Kore Labs to work on an exciting project to build a taxonomy over the terms and concepts held within financial agreements. This will enable both the standardisation of these documents but also the checking and automatic construction of new documents.
The project seeks to extract and understand the knowledge held within financial agreements. These documents are normally unstructured and require Natural Language Processing to understand, however, Kore Labs have been developing a taxonomy for these agreements and the project will work to automate the population of these taxonomies as well as understanding the agreements themselves.
The research will focus on six main tasks: i) prediction of the next feature required in the agreement, ii) automatically generating an ontology of features, iii) identification of miss-use of features, iv) auto population of documents with appropriate features, v) identification of core concepts which make up agreements, vi) identification of new trends and requirements for agreements and taxonomies.
We are seeking a passionate, highly motivated individual who is consistently methodical in their approach to research and adept at problem solving. We are looking for someone who is naturally collaborative and focussed on producing high-quality research outputs as part of a diverse and interdisciplinary team.
You should have excellent interpersonal skills, with a talent for building professional working relationships with internal and external stakeholders. You may be required to design, create and present group research findings to external stakeholders, we are therefore looking for an individual who is innovative and possesses excellent communication skills.
The position is available on a full time, fixed term basis, to start immediately until 30th April 2025 with possibility of extension. To apply for this role please provide evidence of how you meet the essential criteria required for the role outlined in ‘The Person’ by uploading a letter of application along with your Curriculum Vitae (CV).
Key accountabilities
- Leading machine learning research activities within the project
- Playing a leading role in dissemination of machine learning research and impact activities for the project, including publications to first tier conferences and leading journals
- Working with Kore Labs to develop an understanding of the core datasets available and how this can be transformed into knowledge
- Contributing to system development for the final project
- Leading and contributing to new machine learning project funding applications
- Contributing to the coordination of the School of Computing, its research groups relevant to this project
The person
Knowledge, skills and experience
- Expertise in Deep Learning Essential
- Strong machine learning delivery skills
- Strong software development skills
- Demonstrable project management skills
- Excellent written and oral communication skills
Desirable
- Strong machine learning experience and proficiency in the state of the art data science languages (e.g., python, R)
- Experience in Graph deep learning, NLP, Large Language Models, supervised and unsupervised learning, and information visualization
- Experience in working in highly interdisciplinary environments
- Track record of delivering systems of machine learning for real-world applications
- Significant experience of project management and team leadership
- Internationally recognized expert in machine learning and its applications (indicated through outstanding track record), with particular expertise in (a combination of) supervised and unsupervised learning, deep learning, natural language processing, knowledge discovery and model interpretability tasks
- International outstanding research and/or practice outputs in machine learning and its application
Attributes and behaviour
- Demonstrated ability to engage with non-academic stakeholders at a local and international level
- Ability to use personal initiative and creativity to solve problems
- Team working and time management skills
- Ability and flexibility to work individually and as part of an interdisciplinary research team
- Ability to carry out an innovative and flexible approach to interdisciplinary research
- Willingness and ability to attend in-person meetings as required for the success of the project and a readiness to work flexibly by mutual arrangement
Qualifications
- PhD awarded (or nearing completion for appointment at Assistant level) in Machine Learning
Desirable
- Evidence of Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
About us
Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.
We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society. We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.
At Newcastle University we hold a silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality. We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC. We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.
In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe.
