Research Associate in Autonomy for Surgical Robotics

UE07: £40,247.00 - £47,874.00 Per Annum.

CSE / School of Informatics.

Fixed Term Contract - 2 Years.

Full Time - 35 Hours Per Week.

The Opportunity:

This post will be part of the Centre for AI for Assistive Autonomy, a mission-driven research centre established using a UKRI Turing AI World Leading Researcher Fellowship awarded to Prof Subramanian Ramamoorthy. 

The post-holder will be the lead researcher anchoring laboratory activities in the area of surgical robotics addressing two parallel concerns. Firstly, the post holder will work on simulation and skill quantification methods to understand human expert skill in detail, enabling improved training and providing the basis for subsequent automation. Secondly, the post holder will develop new methods for task level autonomy in surgical robotic systems. This represents one of the main application themes within the centre, alongside assistive technology for activities of daily living, and autonomous vehicles. This work benefits from parallel work of a foundations team, whose focus will be on fundamental investigations into generative modelling of the full stack of human behaviour, from sensorimotor control to higher level cognitive decision making, to enable the development of person-centred and teachable autonomous systems. 

The post holder will be supervised by the Centre Director (Ramamoorthy), with input on the clinical side from Prof Shervanthi Homer-Vanniasinkam (UCL and Leeds Teaching Hospital) and Prof Paul Brennan (NHS Lothian and University of Edinburgh). The post holder will also have the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues in a wide range of specialties across the University, including in machine learning and vision (e.g. Fisher, Mac Aodha, Bilen, Sevilla-Lara, Vergari), probabilistic programming (e.g. Narayanaswamy, Kammar, Belle), natural language understanding and interaction (e.g. Lascarides, Lapata, Gal), computational cognitive science and neuroscience (e.g. Lucas, Hennig, Nolan, Rajendran), as well as in robotics and neurotechnology (e.g. Vijayakumar, Nazarpour) and engineering of novel sensing and devices (Prodromakis, Koutsos, Amjadi). Beyond the university, the Centre will pursue collaborations with international teams including at The University of Texas at Austin (Stone), Stanford University (Kochenderfer), University of Bremen (Beetz) and Monash University (Burke).

The Centre will also have a strong industrial partner network, including Fourier Intelligence, Honda Research Europe, Shadow Robot, Sony Europe and other organisations who will be engaged in the Centre’s work at all stages, with the expectation that this network grows over time as the Centre’s work grows and begins to have broader impacts.

The central purpose of the job is to carry out research on AI for surgical robotics, covering two parallel concerns. Firstly, the post holder will develop methods to understand human surgical skill. Drawing on data from novel simulation and sensing systems, and other data available from partners (e.g. Brennan and collaborators), the post holder will develop methods for skill quantification. This involves the creative application of robot learning methods, including learning from demonstration and inverse optimal control methods, to characterise human expert skills in increasingly more complex surgical task domains. Secondly, building on this, the post holder will devise methods for task level autonomy in surgical robotics. 

This work will build on an established track record (Ramamoorthy) and facilities available within the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, and also draw on know-how and resources from the Leeds Teaching Hospital and UCL Bioengineering facilities (Homer-Vanniasinkam). 

The candidate is expected to take intellectual ownership of core scientific questions in this space, developing new ideas and driving collaborative projects towards significant publications, leveraging the expertise of the supervision team and other scientific collaborators. 

It is also expected that the post holder will contribute to the development of new assets in the form of experimental robotic systems and demonstrators. These will be expected to make use of data and model assets created by other Centre researchers. 

The duties associated with this post will include:

• Undertaking a specific role in the research project under supervision (approx. 25%)
• Taking responsibility for some elements of the planned research (approx. 20%)
• Planning and carrying out a work programme appropriate to the research activity (approx. 20%)
• Developing own research portfolio in related areas (approx. 10%)
• Contributing to the writing of research grants (approx. 10%)
• Contributing to dissemination and publication of personal and/or research teams findings as appropriate. (approx. 10%)
• Contribute to learning and teaching through activities such as project supervision, tutoring and marking (limited to no more than 5% on an annualised basis). 

Your skills and attributes for success: 

Essential:

• A PhD (or near completion) in robotics, preferably with a focus on robot learning
• An excellent track record of publications in top-tier journals (e.g. IEEE Trans. or broad-interest science venues) and/or conferences in AI (e.g. IJCAI, AAAI, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR), robotics (e.g. R:SS, CoRL, ICRA), or allied areas
• Excellent proven experience of developing field robotics systems involving robotic manipulation 
• Ability to work effectively as part of a team, to meet deadlines, and to report on project progress
• Ability to communicate complex information clearly, orally and in writing.

Desirable:

• Research experience with methods for learning from demonstration or inverse optimal control
• Research experience with real-time perception and scene understanding methods based on state-of-the-art machine learning methods
• Hands-on experience of designing and conducting field experiments, including human subject studies 
• Demonstrated experience of the development and management of projects involving multiple stakeholders.

Click to view a copy of the full job description (opens new browser tab)

Application Information: 

Please ensure you include the following documents in your application:

- CV

- Cover letter

Contact details for informal enquiries: Ram Ramamoorthy, s.ramamoorthy@ed.ac.uk 

As a valued member of our team you can expect: A competitive salary

• An exciting, positive, creative, challenging and rewarding place to work. 
• To be part of a diverse and vibrant international community
• Comprehensive Staff Benefits, such as a generous holiday entitlement, competitive pension schemes, staff discounts, and family-friendly initiatives. Check out the full list on our staff benefits page (opens in a new tab) and use our reward calculator to discover the total value of your pay and benefits 

Championing equality, diversity and inclusion

The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality. 

Prior to any employment commencing with the University you will be required to evidence your right to work in the UK. Further information is available on our right to work webpages (opens new browser tab)

Key dates to note

The closing date for applications is 10 January 2025.

Unless stated otherwise the closing time for applications is 11:59pm GMT. If you are applying outside the UK the closing time on our adverts automatically adjusts to your browsers local time zone. 

The University is able to sponsor the employment of international workers in this role.  If successful, an international applicant requiring sponsorship to work in the UK will need to satisfy the UK Home Office’s English Language requirements and apply for and secure a Skilled Worker Visa.  

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