Postdoctoral Research Associate in Biohybrid Robotics

**Postdoctoral Research Associate in Biohybrid Robotics** **(**Job Number**:25000067**)**

Department of Computer Science

Grade 7: - £37,999 - £45,163 per annum

Fixed Term - Full Time

**Contract Duration**: 36 months

**Contracted Hours per Week**: 35

**Closing Date**: 03-Mar-2025, 5:59:00 PM

**Disclosure and Barring Service Requirement**: Not Applicable.

**Working at Durham University**

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**The Department**

Computer Science at Durham is a UK Top 10 Department (Complete University Guide 2024). We are committed to high-quality teaching and research, and the Department increased excellence in all research areas since the last research assessment exercise, moving six places up the ranking to the 20th position for REF 2021. We are proud of our emphasis on equality, diversity and inclusion and are working hard to make our department the No. 1 University in the UK for women to study Computer Science.

**The Role**

The **BioDiMoBot** project will deliver a system for autonomous, long-term robotic assessments of **aquatic biodiversity and ecology**. This project will develop an innovative measurement system to **monitor biodiversity** and provide insight into the drivers of ecosystem degradation. Additionally, it will assess organismic and environmental stress levels by using **novel biohybrid sensors**. With the BioDiMoBots' ability to perform autonomous and automated multimodal **long-term data collection**, the project will create a user-friendly robotic tool that provides detailed insights into the ecological health of aquatic environments. The project will be driven by the needs of potential stakeholders such as researchers, small and medium-sized enterprises in water-related industries and policy-makers. Field operations will demonstrate the transformative power of the BioDiMoBot systems by monitoring aquatic ecosystems over a long period of time.

This position will ideally suit applicants with an interest in developing** robotic** systems. The successful applicant will be responsible for **hardware** (electronics) design, **low-level programming**and **developing controllers**, as well as implementation and testing the robotic system and its appropriate frameworks. In addition, some hands on data collection in the **bio-hybrid** ecosystem must be performed and so applicants must be willing to get involved in experimental work in the field.

The project is a HORIZON funded collaboration between the University of Durham in the UK, the University of Graz in Austria, Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy, SYRION in Austria, Oesterreichische Bundesforste in Austria and Carbon Kapture (Mulroy Bay) Ltd in the UK. This role will involve close collaboration with these external partners. You will be expected to visit several of these institutions in the course of your work and will be based in the Department of Computer Science at Durham University.

**Key responsibilities**:

- To conduct individual and collaborative research projects under the direction of the line manager.
- To design and develop novel and cutting-edge deep learning and image processing frameworks for automated species identification and environmental stress assessment, as well as frameworks needed for other similar research.
- To understand and convey material of a specialist or highly technical nature to the team or group of people through presentations and discussions that leads to the presentation of research papers in conferences and publicati