Research Associate on Resources and Co-resources
Posted: 3rd October 2019
Department of Computer Science, Parks Road, Oxford.
Research Associate on Resources and Co-resources
Fixed-term for up to 36 months
Hours – 37.5 hours per week
Grade 7 - £32,817 - £40,322
We are recruiting a Research Associate in Theoretical Computer Science, on a fixed-term contract of up to 36 months. The post is funded by an EPSRC project on "Resources and co-resources: a junction between semantics and descriptive complexity" which is jointly led by Prof. Samson Abramsky FRS at Oxford, and Prof. Anuj Dawar at the University of Cambridge.
The project seeks to explore ways in which methods from the study of logic and algorithms (specifically finite model theory and descriptive complexity) can be combined with methods from semantics (such as category theory) to build a cohesive algebraic theory of resources. This builds on recent work obtaining categorical accounts of essential constructions in finite model theory (by Abramsky, Dawar and Wang and Abramsky and Shah), as well as categorical accounts of quantum resources (by Abramsky, Barbosa, de Silva and Zapata). This work made essential use of monads -- seen as encapsulating quantum and other resources -- and of comonads, which encapsulate “coresources”, i.e. ways of limiting access to a structure corresponding to definability in various logics. The project will seek to apply these new tools to major results in descriptive complexity, to expand them to cover other important constructions, to find ways of combining accounts of quantum resources and logical co-resources, and to build a general theory of these.
Professor Abramsky leads a group of researchers and doctoral students working on topics in semantics, type theory and quantum computing. This is part of the Foundations, Structure and Quantum group within the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford. The successful candidate will join this group and also be expected to work closely with the group led by Prof. Dawar at Cambridge. The project also involves collaboration with a number of other research groups in Europe and the United States.
We seek candidates who hold (or are close to completing) a PhD degree in Computer Science, Mathematics or a closely-related area. Candidates should have a strong background in areas of theoretical computer science such as logic, complexity or semantics, ideally with published work in the area.
The closing date for applications is 12 noon on Monday 4 November 2019. Interviews are expected to be held w/c 11 November 2019. For further details and to apply please visit: https://my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecruit/erq_jobspec_details_form.jobspec?p_id=143249
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