Category Archives: UCD

March 2009 Higher Diploma in Computer Science UCD

My two years as Director of the Higher Diploma in Computer Science in Computer Science and Informatics in UCD are now at an end and my colleague Dr. Eleni Mangina is now taking over this role. She, along with colleagues in CSI are re-launching the HDip in Computer Science with some new and innovative aspects for the 2009 programme. If you have any questions on this new program please contact: csi.secretary@ucd.ie.

Thanks to all the lecturing staff for their help and students who have undertaken the Higher Diploma over the past two years. As always, many of these students have gone onto great things with several now undertaking postdoctoral study in UCD.

Mar 2009 Dviz hiring two more staff

The Dviz project is a collaborative digital technology research project between Twelve Horses, IADT and UCD, and is funded by the NDRC [ more blog posts ]. This project brings together a diverse skill set from both its commercial partner and institutional research teams to realise an innovative visualisation platform with strong commercial potential. [ Vacancies PDF ]

Applications are invited for appointment to the following two year fixed term contract posts:

  • Web Developer (n-tier) Ref: 5/09
  • Front–end Web Application Developer Ref: 6/09

Inclusive salary scale: €47,675 to €54,642 (5 points)

Further details on the above posts are available on our website www.iadt.ie or by contacting: The Human Resource Office, Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Kill Avenue, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin. Telephone: (01) 239 4601, Fax: (01) 239 4700, Email: recruitment@iadt.ie

Applications by way of letter of application highlighting your key competencies, skills, knowledge and experience to date which you believe match those required to successfully deliver on the responsibilities of the post holder should be submitted not later than: 12 Noon, Friday 20th March 2009. A copy of your current Curriculum Vitae should also be submitted with your letter of application. Late Applications will not be accepted IADT is an equal opportunities employer.

[ IADT Website ] [ Vacancies PDF ]

Advert to appear in print on Friday (click to see larger version):

Feb 2009 Clique Strategic Research Cluster funded: €3.56 million

I am one of the six principal investigators for Clique which was announced by the Irish Tánaiste as an Science Foundation Ireland funded (SFI) Strategic Research Cluster. Our industry partners, in this joint initiative are IBM, Idiro Technologies and Norkom Technologies. Our academic partners are UCD and DERI in Galway. Clique runs from 2009 – 2013 and has a focus on the analysis and visualisation of large graphs and networks, specifically social and biological networks. This is a very exciting development for my research as it will allow me to hire a number of postdocs and postgraduates but more importantly to work in a research eco-system with domain experts, industry partners, rich data sources and collaborators interested in various aspects of the end-to-end problems in visual analytics.


Many of the Clique team will be based in the UCD CASL

While these companies are providing matching funding and resources the SFI is providing €3.56 million over the course of 5 years. In total with industry and SFI funding the program has funding in excess of €5 million. The academic principal investigators involved are, Prof. Pádraig Cunningham, Prof. Denis Shields, Prof. Brendan Murphy, Dr. Aaron Quigley, Dr. Neil Hurley and Dr. Conor Hayes. The funding will be used to hire postdoctoral researchers and pay postgraduate scholarships.

The development of this research cluster has been a long time in the making. I’ve been an IBM visiting scientist since 2005 and others have been collaborating with Idiro and Norkom over a number of years. This cluster was first proposed over 1 year ago when 40 similar clusters were proposed to the SFI. The process to select these five from the forty has included a preliminary expression of interest (then review), full detailed proposal (then reviews), site visit (international panel), SFI review and board review and final the official announcement by the government! It’s a very rigourous process aimed to ensure the best research is funded, the value for the Irish tax payer is strong and the potential for industry is high.

I look forward to blogging about new team members, new research ideas, papers, outputs and commercilisation in the years to come!

[ Read SFI News Release ]

“SFI Strategic Research Clusters (SRCs) will help link scientists and engineers in partnerships across academia and industry to address crucial research questions, foster the development of new and existing Irish-based technology companies, and grow partnerships with industry that could make an important contribution to Ireland and its economy.

The SRC programme has been designed to facilitate the clustering of outstanding researchers to carry out joint research activities in areas of strategic importance to Ireland (in ICT and/or BioTech sectors), while also giving the time and resources to attract and cultivate strong industry partnerships that can inform and enhance their research programmes.”

Feb 2009 Just for Ross

Just for Ross, one of my PhD students, I've moved to some proper
blogging software. Previously I used Feeder, a mac based software app,
which I was very happy with. However, this didn't allow for linking,
commenting etc.. hence wasn’t really "blogging" instead mere note
taking. So after migrating 160 posts to blogger (o, by the way blogger
thanks for making this impossible to do automatically) here I am
emailing my blog this post! If this mail2blogger actually works I will
be well impressed.

Thanks also to Umer for taking the time out to demo a visualisation
application on our MERL Diamondtouch multi-touch surface. I will be
posting more on this as we develop our tutorial program for http://www.tis2009.org/ TableTop 2009

Apr 2008 SFI Funded CSET: CLARITY

Science Foundation Ireland is to fund a €16.4m technology partnership between UCD, DCU and Tyndall in the CLARITY CSET. I’m one of the collaborators in this centre and other academics in my research group such as Simon and Paddy and in my school in UCD are leading researchers in this world class research effort.

This CSET has grown out of the AIC who helped us secure our SFI UREKA grant in 2007 for ODCSSS, which continues to this day. Congrats to Barry and Alan and the rest of the CLARITY PIs.

Interested students should keep an eye open for future calls for both postgraduate and postdoctoral research positions with this new CSET.
News Coverage:

Jan 2008 CLARITY SFI site-visit

I’ve been involved with the Adaptive Information Cluster in UCD and DCU for a number of years. Primarily through ODCSSS, our undergraduate research internship program which they helped support with funds for the first couple of years. More recently this group of the Principal Investigators along with their associate PIs and affiliated collaborators (of which I am just 1) and their numerous industrial partners presented their bid for a CSET entitled CLARITY to an independent site visit panel. This review is part of the SFI process in the high quality peer review to decide on a CSET.

Side note…..

I’ve only been back in Ireland a few years and I’ve been through a few of these CSET visits and reviews. They are always an interesting experience. Last year I was on Computer Engineering grant review panel myself for the Foundation for Science and the Technology Portugal (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) so it’s always a challenging prospect for everyone involved to ensure the best quality research gets funded be it locally, nationally or internationally. By remote review to Canada and the UK and personally in Australia I got to see the full force of their NSERC/EPSRC/CRC processes which are all entirely different dynamics.
From my experience a few key aspects of successful grant review include:

  • Quality research should be the first and last metric for evaluation
  • An international panel for small countries or for larger grants
  • Zero interference from the funding body to the reviewers/panel
  • A clear understanding of the national/international funding context by the panellists
  • Both breath and depth in the review panels in terms of topics and governance.

From what I’ve seen, the SFI is one of the leaders in getting grant reviews right. They are improving the local ecosystem for research not just because they follow good practice but because they help define it.

Oct 2007 Three Open Postdoc Posts

3 postdoctoral research positions available in:

* wireless sensor networks
* software engineering for autonomic systems
* enterprise systems engineering

Systems Research Group
School of Computer Science and Informatics
UCD Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

The group
=========

UCD’s Systems Research Group conducts world-recognised research in
software and systems engineering, with particular emphasis on
pervasive computing, autonomic communications, software development of
dependable systems, complex systems visualisation and embedded systems
design. SRG is unique in spanning the range of systems disciplines
from hardware and programming up to mathematical modeling and
analysis, and places great emphasis on collaborative research that
leverages this expertise. The group is accommodated within UCD’s
Complex and Adaptive Systems Laboratory (CASL, http://casl.ucd.ie/), a
groundbraking facility that brings together researchers in computer
science, mathematics, bioinformatics, physical and earth sciences to
conduct researech in a highly cross-disciplinary environment. SRG
currently consists of five academic staff, three postdoctoral
researchers and around 30 graduate students (almost all fully-funded)
studying both full- and part-time for advanced degrees. The group has
a current grant portfolio worth over EUR3.5M and a publication output
of over 30 papers per year in world-leading conferences and journals.

As part of its on-going research programme, SRG has vacancies for
three talented and well-motivated postdoctoral researchers to help
drive the group’s evolution. Suitable candidates will have a
successful academic record to doctoral level, together with a
portfolio of internationally peer-reviewed conference and journal
publications and evidence of significant future potential in
research. Furthermore they will be expected to engage broadly in the
development of the group, the supervision of graduate students and
other activities.

Salaries for all three posts will be in the range EUR37,886 –
EUR46,043 depending on qualifications and experience. All posts are of
two years’ durattion with the possibility of extension, and will be
probational for the first 12 months.

The positions
=============

Postdoctoral researcher in wireless sensor networks
—————————————————

The successful candidate will conduct and manage research in the area
of wireless sensor networks embedded into the built environment,
providing advanced sensor and actuator capabilities within built
artefacts. This will take place within the framework of a large-scale
collaboration managed by Cork Institute of Technology and including
several other Irish universities and public bodies, which will also
fund two studentships in the area. A track record of research in one
or more of pervasive computing, network analysis, embedded systems
development and systems architecture are essential, as is a
willingness to learn and work in a variety of new areas. Further
particulars can be obtained from Dr Simon Dobson
(simon.dobson@ucd.ie).

Postdoctoral researcher in software engineering for autonomic systems
———————————————————————

The successful candidate will work in conjunction with LERO, the Irish
Software Engineering Research Centre (http://www.lero.ie) to conduct
research into improving the principles and practice of engineering
autonomic systems — self-managing, self-optimising, self-healing and
so forth. Current interests include programming languages and
approaches, middleware, complex systems visualisation, and
mathematical models of software engineering, and a track record in one
or more of these areas are essential. The researcher will join a team
including an exisiting postdoc and four fully-funded graduate
students. Further particulars can be obtained from Dr Aaron Quigley
(aaron.quigley@ucd.ie).

Postdoctoral researcher in enterprise systems engineering
———————————————————

The successful candidate will work in collaboration with Oracle
Ireland Ltd on the development of improved models and techniques for
diagnosing, predicting and managing faults and failures within
large-scale distributed software systems. A track record in one or
more of distributed systems, autonomic computing, dependable systems,
fault-tolerance and fault analysis are essential. Further particulars
may be obtained from Prof Paddy Nixon (paddy.nixon@ucd.ie).

To apply
========

Please direct expressions of interest (including short CV) to the
contact individual named above for the specific post of
interest. Applications will be accepted until all posts are filled.

CASL Logo

June 2007 Hdip and ODCSSS Feeds

The School of Computer Science in UCD has been running a very successful and popular H. Dip. in Computer Science for a number of year. As the new course director I have started to revamp this course and improve its industrial relevance starting in 2007. Ongoing developments will solidify our role as the leading conversion course for non-computing majors into computer science in Ireland. I maintain an RSS feed which you can subscribe to in a number of ways: Higher Diploma Computer Science News Feed

The H. Dip. in Computer Science UCD is a conversion course which gives graduates from non-computing disciplines a sound theoretical foundation and practical exposure to Computer Science. In addition, the course may qualify participants to study for an M.Sc. in Computer Science. The course is made up of 10 modules of Computer Science, where a module typically consists of 24 lectures and additional practical sessions.

ODCSSS Poster

June 5th saw 12 students join us in Computer Science and Informatics in UCD for the UREKA (SFI) funded ODCSSS research summer school. In total there are 24 International research undergraduate projects in Ireland for “Technologies for Aiding Human Memory”. ODCSSS 2007 News

ODCSSS the Online Dublin Computer Science Summer School is a paid research internship program for undergraduate students funded in part by the Science Foundation Ireland under their UREKA program. ODCSSS is a four-year collaborative internship program between the School of Computer Science and Informatics at the University College Dublin and the School of Computing at the Dublin City University.

This year we had over 100 applications from around the world. In 2007 we have students coming from Universities in Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Slovenia, Spain, Thailand and the USA. The primary goal of this research program is to afford exceptional undergraduate students the opportunity to participate and contribute to exciting yet challenging research projects and to inspire them to go on to undertake research careers.

Feb 2007 Move of SRG group to CASL

We have moved to the new Complex & Adaptive Systems Laboratory along with 22 PIs in the first phase of its development. This lab brings together academics from the schools of Business, Computer Science and Informatics, Electrical, Electronic & Mechanical Engineering, Geological Sciences and Mathematical Sciences and the Conway Institute. We also now have 118 postgrads and postdocs and two administrators here in CASL.