Fully funded PhD position available

[mauro....@gmail.com]

Fully funded PhD position in “Solving Multiple Loosely Coupled Planning Problems”

 **deadline for applications: June, 10 2022**

The University of Huddersfield and Schlumberger Cambridge Research Limited offer a fully funded PhD position in the field of Automated Planning within Artificial Intelligence.

 

With the PhD project, we will advance the state of the art of automated planning applied to real-world problems, and have a significant impact to the operations of Schlumberger. One of the key challenges in a global engineering operation is optimal cooperation and coordination which happens on all scales: from in-country local experts to regionally sourced consumables and additives to global deployment of small numbers of highly specialized measurement and drilling systems. Planning takes place on all scales and must be reactive to replan under changing conditions. As we automate more of these activities, through AI planning and scheduling, there is an opportunity to explore the coupling between problems on overlapping domains and to develop the algorithms that will understand the dependencies; providing solutions to all that are consistent and optimal in a global sense.

 

The University of Huddersfield was awarded University of the Year in 2013 by Times Higher Education. In the recent Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014), the University of Huddersfield increased from 97th to 68th in the UK Research Power league table. The School of Computing and Engineering provides a research-supportive environment. Collectively, the School has secured over £26M in recent research funding from UKRI and Horizon 2020. The PhD will be based in The Centre for Planning, Autonomy and Representation of Knowledge, that includes world-recognised experts in Artificial Intelligence, including Automated Planning, Knowledge Engineering, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning and machine learning https://research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/park/

 

Schlumberger is the world’s leading supplier of technology, integrated project management and information solutions to the oil and gas industry. The company employs over 80,000 people representing over 140 nationalities and working in more than 85 countries, including significant research, engineering, product development and operational facilities in the United Kingdom.

 

We are looking for motivated and talented applicants with very good university degrees (MSc or equivalent) in Computer Science or Mathematics (or comparable fields), and with solid background in one or more of:

 

- automated planning and scheduling,

- knowledge representation and reasoning,

- formal methods in computer science,

- strong implementation skills motivated by challenging combinatorial problems and interest in theory.

 

The positions are co-funded by Schlumberger Cambridge Research and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), full-time, and fixed-term for three years. Candidates should be independent in organising their work, keen on working with teams of experts of project partners, and fluent in English, oral and written. Starting time can be as soon as possible, according to the University of Huddersfield PhD program starting dates.

If you are interested in further details regarding the PhD informally, you can contact Dr Mauro Vallati at m.va...@hud.ac.uk
Formal applications should be made via the dedicated website: https://research.hud.ac.uk/research-degrees/how-to-apply/ by June, 10 2022.