Postdoctoral position in in Distributed Machine Learning for Intrusion Detection Systems in the IoT

The Department of Information Technology holds a leading position in both research and education at all levels. We are currently Uppsala University's third largest department, have around 350 employees, including 120 teachers and 120 PhD students. Approximately 5,000 undergraduate students take one or more courses at the department each year. You can find more information about us on the department of Information Technology website.

The Department of Information Technology is opening a PostDoc position for highly motivated individuals interested in conducting outstanding research in the area of data driven IoT cybersecurity. You will join one of the leading research groups with publications at the most prestigious conferences in the area.

Subject area
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a critical component in many industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, automotive, and more. However, because of its important role, the IoT network is constantly a target of attacks. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are critical components of an effective IoT cybersecurity defense strategy and machine learning plays a pivotal role in intrusion detection by learning from past and simulated attacks. 

Duties
The objective of the position is to explore and provide privacy-preserving and robust techniques to build strong IDS with contributions from multiple actors and systems, to share knowledge from different environments and contexts. Specifically, the position will focus on methods for mitigating the expected data heterogeneity in federated learning (FL) among a set of IoT network providers, as well as FL-model robustness. The position is for two years, and includes department duties (mainly teaching) at a level of at most 20%.

Requirements
PhD degree in computer science or electrical engineering, or equivalent or a foreign degree equivalent to a PhD degree computer science or electrical engineering, or equivalent. The degree needs to be obtained by the time of the decision of employment. Those who have obtained a PhD degree three years prior to the application deadline are primarily considered for the employment. The starting point of the three-year frame period is the application deadline. Due to special circumstances, the degree may have been obtained earlier. The three-year period can be extended due to circumstances such as sick leave, parental leave, duties in labor unions, etc.

A genuine interest and curiosity in the subject matter and excellent analytical and communication skills, both oral and written, are required.

Excellent communication skills in oral and written English is a requirement.

Additional qualifications
The ideal candidate for the position has research experience in communication networks, IoT, machine learning, information security, and data analysis. Further, experience with federated learning, transfer learning, GAN, and programming of distributed systems is helpful.

The application must contain:
1. A cover letter briefly describing your motivation for applying for this position and project, and the earliest possible employment date (max 1 page).
2. A curriculum vitae (CV).
3. A list of publications.
4. Up to five selected publications in electronic format.
5. A research statement describing your past and current research (max 1 page) and a proposal for future activities (max 1 page).
6. Contact information for two references.
7. A copy of relevant grade documents (translated into Swedish or English).

About the employment
The employment is a temporary position of two years according to central collective agreement. Full time position. Starting date 2024-08-15 or as agreed. Placement: Uppsala

For further information about the position, please contact: Prof. Christian Rohner, Division of Computer Systems, christian.rohner@it.uu.se or Assoc Prof. Andreas Johnsson, Division of Computer Systems, andreas.johnsson@it.uu.se 

Please submit your application by 30 April 2024, UFV-PA 2024/1136. 

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