Research Fellow in Verification or Security or Concurrent/Distributed Systems

European Commission; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

The University of Surrey is seeking a full-time postdoctoral research fellow in Computer Science to work on formal modelling, verification, and related topics. The role involves collaboration with leading researchers and offers a vibrant research environment focused on cybersecurity. Applicants should have a strong research background and be close to obtaining a PhD.

Benefits

Access to cutting-edge hardware testbeds

Support for career development

Mentoring and early career researcher training

Qualifications

• Strong research in formal modelling, verification, or related areas.
• Strong publication record.
• Close to obtaining a PhD.

Responsibilities

• Work on formal modelling, verification, and logic.
• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams and industrial partners.
• Engage in research on security verification and protocol design.

Skills

Formal modelling

Verification

Logic

Programming languages

Distributed algorithms

Education

PhD in Computer Science

Job description

Organisation/Company UNIVERSITY OF SURREY Research Field Computer science Researcher Profile Leading Researcher (R4) Country United Kingdom Application Deadline 23 May 2025 - 00:00 (UTC) Type of Contract Other Job Status Full-time Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

The University of Surrey is a global community of ideas and people, dedicated to life-changing education and research.

We are ambitious and have a bold vision of what we want to achieve - shaping ourselves into one of the best universities in the world, which we are achieving through the talents and endeavour of every employee.

Our culture empowers people to achieve this aim and to collectively, and individually, make a real difference.

About the role

The Department of Computer Science at the University of Surrey is seeking to recruit a full-time postdoctoral research fellow to work on a range of topics in the areas including:

• formal modelling, verification and/or logic;
• interactive and automated tools, such as theorem provers and model checkers;
• proofs of safety and/or security properties;
• programming languages and/or type systems;
• concurrent and/or distributed algorithms; and related topics.

The successful applicant will work in a multidisciplinary team under the guidance of Brijesh Dongol (PI) and Gregory Chockler (co-I), as well as a large team of academics (Imperial, Kent, Sheffield, MPI-SWS, Cornell, IMDEA, etc) and industrial collaborators (Arm, NVIDIA, Galois), researchers and PhD students.

Research Environment

Surrey is recognized by the NCSC as an Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research and offers a thriving research environment with world-leading researchers. Brijesh Dongol is a Director of the NCSC/UK Research Institute on Verified Trustworthy Software Systems (VeTSS,https://vetss.org.uk/ )hosted jointly at Surrey and Imperial.

Our research includes security verification, protocol design and analysis, distributed and network systems, concurrency, data privacy, privacy preserving security, and applied cryptography. We offer access to a variety of cutting-edge hardware testbeds including a 7-node RDMA cluster (NVIDIA) as well as machines equipped with persistent memory (Intel Optane) and trusted execution environments (Intel SGX).

The University is committed to equality and diversity. Research staff at the Department are supported and encouraged in their career development through mentoring and early career researcher training. The Department fosters a collegial and collaborative atmosphere, in which individuals are valued for the varied skills and perspectives they bring.

About you

We are looking for applicants that demonstrate strong research in one or more of the above areas backed by a strong publication record.

Applicants must have or be close to obtaining a PhD in Computer Science.

How to Apply

Please submit your CV, cover letter, Research Proposal and Recent Relevant Publication with your application on the university website. The deadline for applications is 23 May'25 .

This is a fixed term contract up to 31/08/2026, with the possibility of an extension.

The University of Surrey reserves the right to close this vacancy early/later based on Volume and Calibre of applications.