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Stephan Reiff-Marganiec: Research Opportunity

EPSRC Industrial Case Studentship with Airbus

The Department of Computer Science (http://www.cs.le.ac.uk) in conjucntion with Airbus are seeking applicant for a new PhD research project, which will investigate the development of a low-cost, distributed and easy deployable monitoring infrastructure for existing, vulnerable SCADA systems. The infrastructure needs to be passive with respect to the monitored components and thus not directly influence the behaviour of the control system. It will serve as an independent quality assurance device that ensures that components continue to operate within their original specification in the light of cyber-incidents and their response and do not violate any safety parameters.

The research challenge is in the adaptation of existing techniques to be usable in a ICS/SCADA context at a practical level. At a theoretical level the decomposition of large-scale system specifications into small independently operating monitors requires compositionality of the specification and verification approach taken. It also needs to address the issue of emergent system behaviours satisfactorily.

Applicants should have (or expect to obtain by the start date) at least a good 2.1 degree (and preferably a Masters degree) in an Engineering or Computer Science related subject providing them with logic reasoning skills as well as a background in software engineering and/or cyber security.

Candidates fullfilling UK residency citeria as outlined by the research councils are eligible for a full scholarship for 3 years and 9 months at the current rate of GBP 14,296. EU students may be eligible for university fees only. Further information about EPSRC icase is available at: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/skills/students/coll/icase/intro/.

Initial informal enquiries about this post may be addressed to Dr Stephan Reiff-Marganiec (email:srm13@le.ac.uk).

Applications should be made on-line via the Graduate Admissions Office (select Campus Based Full-time, Computer Science Research) by 15th July 2016. The selected candidate is expected to be in position no later than 1st September 2016 (and ideally before).

The University values diversity and is committed to equality of opportunity.

Author: Stephan Reiff-Marganiec (srm13@le.ac.uk), T: +44 (0) 116 252 2603.
© University of Leicester 15-May-2016. Last modified: 2nd June 2016, 11:41:24
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