Funding information
This is a three year fully funded scholarship providing a stipend of $16,296 p.a. and a home/EU fee waiver.
The funding is provided by the Magna Carta Doctoral Training Centre at Royal Holloway, University of London, supported by the Leverhulme Trust.
The opportunity
The scholarship is an exciting opportunity for an ambitious graduate student to carry out research in multi-agent models to support electronic privacy. The successful candidate will work with staff from the Computer Science Department and the School of Law at Royal Holloway University of London. This studentship will enable the candidate to develop academic-standard research skills and a deep understanding of privacy law and how to enforce this law using techniques from multi-agent systems with potential collaboration with external firms and start-ups.
Project Overview
The goal of this project is to study new mechanisms for supporting the privacy of electronic transactions over large computer networks.
The mechanisms to be studied will be modelled using architectures, protocols and models originating in multi-agent systems research and their associated deployment infrastructures.
It is anticipated that agents deployed to support privacy will encapsulate knowledge about privacy policies on the data exchanged in an electronic transaction, maintain provenance of information as logs of data transfers and monitor access to this information in the long term to avoid privacy violations.
It is also anticipated that agents will communicate with other agents to report violations and to maintain the required accountability between all relevant parties.
The student will be hosted in the DICE Lab, which conducts research in Distributed and Intelligent Computing Environments using Agents and Multi-agent Systems.
Requirements
Applicants should have a first or upper-second class honours degree or an MSc in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics or a related discipline and excellent understanding of computational logic together with software development skills, preferably in Prolog and/or Java.
Among desirable skills are experience with agent architectures, agent protocols, the formalisation of legal rules as well as the application of computers in the domain of the law.
How to Apply
Interested candidates should apply as soon as possible using the University’s online application system. Please read carefully all the
information on the application process including English language requirements.
While completing the postgraduate application form please include also:
- your most recent CV; and
- a personal statement outlining your interest in the area of privacy and highlighting any relevant experience you have with
multi-agent system models, architectures and technologies.
For informal inquiries about the position, please contact Prof. Kostas Stathis.
Closing Date: 15 April 2016.