Safe, Ethical and Secure (Embedded) Computing

A couple years ago, I was tasked by my department to put together an innovative programme to train PhD students. After doing a consultation with all colleagues in our research away day in 2019, I could see a scenario that went completely against the picture of a stereotypical PhD student as a lonely character working on a hermetic topic which they carefully hide from the world until they can publish it causing fanfare and/or Earth-shattering consequences. Instead, what emerged was the desire for a strong sense of community, and emphasis on resilience and mutual support. Among the research topics we should emphasise, the list that emerged included green computing, explainable and safe AI, trustworthy decision-making in humans and machines, and ethical digital technologies. This was a very valuable exercise, and helped us in understanding the long term aspirations of the department in terms of research.

But then the covid 19 pandemic happened, and all research activities in the department were deprioritised so we had enough manpower to cope with the heavy workload caused by the move into online teaching. The plans for the innovative doctoral traning were suspended, and only resumed in early 2021. By then, with Paul Cairns as the new head of department and Ibrahim Habli as deputy head for research, the long term research vision for the department had been aptly summarised as safe, ethical and secure computing. And the new doctoral training centre was chosen to be a key instrument in realising that view, providing fully-funded studentships to students willing to work on high-impact research in those areas. So I took on the challenge and, with excellent support from the department's admissions team, managed to advertise, interview and recruit the first batch of PhD students for SEtS, the department's Doctoral Centre for Safe, Ethical and Secure Computing. They started their journey towards a PhD two months ago, and their topics cover areas as diverse as machine learning for cocoa plant disease identification, wireless networking for swarm robotics, monetisation strategies and player well-being in online gaming, and formal proofs for security-related properties in robotic systems. Interestingly, two of them are former EMBS students, and one of them appears in the EMBS Design Contest hall of fame! I am now meeting them on a weekly basis, trying out a number of new training initiatives, and gathering feedback on how to improve the training process for future cohorts.

So while the focus of the doctoral centre is much wider, there are many opportunities for research work in the area of embedded systems. The application process will be open over the next two months, so feel free to contact me if you are interested in pursuing a PhD in our doctoral centre. I'll be happy to discuss a potential research topic, or to introduce you to colleagues that do work in the areas you might be interested in. Find more details about my research areas, and my contact information, here.

Who would not want to be part of a centre with the acronym SEtS and with a Venn diagram showing the intersection of its three main areas as its logo?