Funded PhD Opportunities 2013
Applications are invited for the PhD research projects listed below. Applicants should hold (or be expecting) a first class or good 2.1 degree in a relevant subject. For project-specific eligibility criteria and funding details please contact the academic responsible for the project before applying; their email addresses are listed below.
To apply, please use the University's online application form at http://www.shef.ac.uk/postgraduate/online and provide the name of the academic (listed below) when asked to name a supervisor.
The following projects have funding:
Software Testing
Contact Dr Gordon Fraser (gordon.fraser@sheffield.ac.uk)
The Department of Computer Science invites applications for a PhD studentship in Software Testing. The studentship will be dedicated to the topic of mining software repositories for software testing.
The field of mining software archives is concerned with the automated extraction, collection, abstraction, and interpretation of events and artifacts created and recorded during software development (typical examples are version archives like Git, bug reports, specification documents, etc.). The goal of this project is to mine software repositories and to turn this dead data into useful models and systems to improve approaches in test generation: What can we learn from the evolution of test suites and past bugs to make test generation more effective and more efficient?
The ideal candidates will hold a first degree (MSc level is a plus) in computer science. Candidates must have excellent programming skills. Experience in one or more of the following areas is desirable: software testing, data mining, and machine learning.
Candidates should submit an application (https://www.shef.ac.uk/postgradapplication/) including a 500 word research proposal on the above mentioned topic, and a 250 word explanation of why their skills, experience and plans for further research or study make them a particularly suitable candidate.
The studentship will cover the candidate’s tuition fees, as well as a stipend of 13,726/year. Due to restrictions from the funding agency, applications are open to all nationalities, but non UK/EU candidates will be required to cover any differences in tuition fees.
The selected candidates will work directly with Dr. Gordon Fraser. This is an opportunity to work in a well-connected international team with world-leading reputation in the Verification and Testing (VT) research group at The University of Sheffield. There are excellent opportunities for publications, project and conference trips.
Potential candidates are welcome to discuss their application informally with Dr Gordon Fraser (gordon.fraser@sheffield.ac.uk).
Application closing date: Open until filled
Natural Speech Technology
Contact Thomas Hain (t.hain@dcs.shef.ac.uk)
Up to three funded Ph.D. studentships are available in the Speech and Hearing Research Group in the Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield UK. These studentships are supported by the EPSRC programme grant in Natural Speech Technology (http://www.natural-speech-technology.org/) and associated funding sources. Project topics will be defined within the following areas: techniques for unsupervised learning from continuous streams of speech data; models that adapt to new scenarios and speaking styles; recognisers that can detect "who spoke what, when, and how" in any acoustic environment and for any task domain; PALs – Personal Adaptive Listening systems for people with communication disorders.