Research Associate - AI in Biomedicine

Salary: £34,866 to £45,163 per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 22 November 2024

The Role

Do you have a passion for leveraging cutting-edge AI techniques to improve healthcare? Are you highly skilled in machine learning and keen to develop and use your expertise, working in an interdisciplinary team with multi-modal data?   If yes, we want someone like you for the role of post-doctoral research associate on EYESAVE: AI-enabled triage for Glaucoma, a new project led by Newcastle University, funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust. 

Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide, and the damage it causes at first goes unnoticed in many people.  Your role is to apply AI to develop new software that forecasts disease progression for patients with suspected glaucoma. The software will draw from historic longitudinal data from thousands of glaucoma patients, including optical coherence tomography (OCT) retinal images, objective measurements, and interventions. 

You will work as the primary postdoctoral research associate, within a highly collaborative team including computer scientists, bioengineers, informaticians, neuroscientists, ophthalmologists, and epidemiologists, working across Newcastle University, Durham University, and local NHS hospitals.  

Your contributions will include curating multi-modal datasets, designing AI methods for information fusion and risk stratification, and devising interpretable visualisations of the AI’s decision-making process. You will take part in regular project meetings, present and discuss results, and help guide the research direction and decisions. You will contribute to publications and conference presentations, as well as, where appropriate, help supervise Masters and doctoral students working on related projects with the team.   

This project builds on the OCTAHEDRON and OCTage projects (OCTAHEDRON | OCTAHEDRON | Newcastle University (ncl.ac.uk)), and interacts with other projects underway within our active and successful AI in the Eye research group, linking clinicians, academics, patients, and practitioners, across levels from trainee to senior investigator. We are proud to promote career development and specialist training for all members of the team. 

In this full-time role, you will be based at our Newcastle upon Tyne campus that has excellent transport links and state of the art facilities. You will have working space and resources in both the Biosciences Institute in the Faculty of Medical Sciences and the School of Computing at Newcastle Helix. We are happy to discuss flexible working needs with you.   

This post is fixed term to the 05.01.2028.

To apply for the position, please send us a CV together with a covering letter outlining why you are interested in the role and giving examples to illustrate how you meet the essential criteria outlined within the Knowledge, skills, and experience in the job description. 

Please contact Professor Anya Hurlbert (anya.hurlbert@ncl.ac.uk) or Professor Jaume Bacardit (Jaume.Bacardit@ncl.ac.uk) for informal enquiries. 

Find out more about the Faculty of Medical Sciences here: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/medical-sciences/

Find out more about our Research Institutes here: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/medical-sciences/research/institutes/

Find out more about the School of Computing here: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing

As part of our commitment to career development for research colleagues, the University has developed 3 levels of research role profiles.  These profiles set out firstly the generic competences and responsibilities expected of role holders at each level and secondly the general qualifications and experiences needed for entry at a particular level.

Key Accountabilities

• Although working under the general guidance of an academic or Principal Investigator, the postholder will contribute ideas, including enhancements to the technical or methodological aspects of their studies, thus providing substantial 'added value' 
• Develop and carry out the specified project using appropriate techniques and equipment as outlined in the personal requirements 
• Determine appropriate methodologies for research, with advice and support where required
• Contribute to grant applications submitted by others and in time develop own research objectives and proposals for funding 
• Begin to write, with appropriate support, proposals for individual research funding or, where funders do not permit this, contribute to the writing of collective bids
• Assess research findings for the need/scope for further investigations
• Contribute to the writing up of their research for publication and dissemination, either through seminar and conference presentations or through publications
• Present research findings, either at conferences or through publications in reputable outlets appropriate to the discipline
• May be involved in the supervision, with guidance, of final year undergraduate research projects and in providing support to postgraduate research students or Research Assistants 
• Will need to work with the support staff and, on occasions, with undergraduate and postgraduate students, and interact intellectually with other academic members of the Institute.
• May contribute to events celebrating the public engagement of science/social sciences/humanities
• Develop an awareness of University structures, policies and procedures and relevant issues in the higher education, research, social and political environment
• Keep abreast of new, relevant technologies and software, and contribute to communications with key personnel in supply and support companies
• Help to maintain web-based software and data repositories for lab or public access where appropriate (e.g. github repositories) 
   

The Person

Knowledge, Skills and Experience 

• Ability to work well as part of a team and rapidly acquire new skills
• Detailed subject knowledge of deep learning as well as traditional machine learning techniques
• Likelihood of advanced skills directly related to the research projects 
• High level of analytical and problem-solving capability 
• Ability to communicate complex information with clarity and to encourage the commitment of others 
• Experience of research with clear transferable skills and some experience or awareness of the research environment 
• Presentations at conferences and/or high-quality publications 
• High level programming skills in several languages, including python
• Expertise in image-oriented deep learning
• Expertise in Image processing

Desirable

• Expertise with retinal OCT image analysis
• Experience with multi-modal data curation
• Strong mathematical skills

Attributes and Behaviour

• Ability to work collaboratively within an interdisciplinary team
• Keenness to discuss and debate alternative solutions to complex problems
• Strong work ethic
• Ability to work to deadlines, while staying clam
• Willingness to help and educate others in your area of expertise 

Desirable

• Ability to engage with, inform and learn from members of public in areas related to the use of AI in medicine
• Willingness to engage with NHS R&D protocols

Qualifications

• A PhD in Machine Learning or closely related field 

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.  We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 27726