Senior Research Associate on New Approaches to Approximability of Satisfiable Problems

Department of Computer Science, Wolfson Building, Parks Road, Oxford.

Senior Research Associate on New Approaches to Approximability of Satisfiable Problems

Full time, Fixed-term contract until 30 June 2027 with a start date flexible, ideally in summer/autumn 2025

Grade 8: Salary range between £48,235- £54,066 per annum (with the potential to under-fill at Grade 7 with salaries in the range of £38,674 - £46,913 p.a.)

The Department of Computer Science has a new opening for Postdoctoral Researchers on New Approaches to Approximability of Satisfiable Problems. The post holder will work with the Principal Investigator, Professor Standa Zivny to investigate one or more of the following:

• computational complexity of CSPs (decision, counting, valued, approx, promise).
• computational complexity of model checking problems.
• power of combinatorial algorithms.
• power of convex relaxations.

The goal of this project is to unleash the full power of the new framework: to develop novel approaches for proving hardness, to devise new algorithmic paradigms, and to attack major open problems, such as the graph colouring problem.

You will be expected to conduct individual research and develop research questions, regularly write research articles at a national level for peer-reviewed journals, agree clear task objectives, organise, and delegate work to other members of the team, and share responsibility for shaping the research group’s plans.

You will have a doctoral degree in Computer Science or related mathematical discipline together with a strong publication record and familiarity with the existing literature and research in algorithms, complexity, constraint satisfaction, optimisation or related areas, as witnessed by published, peer-reviewed work.  Expertise in algorithm design, computational complexity, linear programming relaxations, semidefinite programming relaxations, or constraint satisfaction problems including algebraic methods for classifying their difficulty is highly desirable and the knowledge of the algebraic and topological methods in the complexity analysis of promise constraint satisfaction problems is essential.

The closing date for applications is 12 noon on 31^st October 2024 Interviews are expected to be held in the week commencing 11^th November 2024.

We are a Stonewall Top 100 Employer, Living Wage, holding an Athena Swan Bronze Award, HR excellence in Research and Race Equality Charter Bronze Award.

Our staff and students come from all over the world and we proudly promote a friendly and inclusive culture. Diversity is positively encouraged, through diversity groups and champions, for example http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/aboutus/women-cs-oxford/index.html , as well as a number of family-friendly policies, such as the right to apply for flexible working and support for staff returning from periods of extended absence, for example shared parental leave.

Demonstrating a commitment to provide equality of opportunity, we would particularly welcome applications from women and black and minority ethnic applicants who are currently under-represented within the Computer Science Department. All applicants will be judged on merit, according to the selection criteria.

For further details and to apply please visit:

https://my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.display_form?p_company=10&p_internal_external=E&p_display_in_irish=N&p_process_type=&p_applicant_no=&p_form_profile_detail=&p_display_apply_ind=Y&p_refresh_search=Y&p_recruitment_id=175466