Fully Funded Ph.D. Studentship

Job Posting: Fully Funded Ph.D. Studentship
Newcastle University

We are inviting talented and highly motivated applicants to submit applications for a PhD studentship at School of Computing, Newcastle University for a project titled:

“Enhancing Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning with Incentives”

This research aims to design secure, reward-based mechanisms that incentivize data contributors to provide their sensitive input data to a collaborative, privacy-preserving federated learning process while ensuring the integrity and privacy of the process.

This has the potential to yield a fairer system and advance the goals of ethical machine learning and responsible AI.

By leveraging techniques from federated learning, cryptography, and game theory, the project will develop technical solutions that fairly reward participants based on their contributions and protect against malicious actors. The expected outcomes include secure formal models, provably secure protocols, practical implementation, and real-world applications in sectors like healthcare and finance, ultimately enhancing the real world adoption of Federated Learning.

Start date and Stipend: You will be expected to start in October of the academic year 2025/2026, the studentship will cover 100% fees and stipend at UKRI level for 4 years full time PhD studies. (2024-2025 UKRI rate £19,237).

Applicant skills/background: Candidates should possess or be highly motivated to acquire, strong knowledge in the following areas: (1) cryptography, (2) Privacy-enhancing technologies, such as FL, (3) mathematics (including number theory and game theory), and (4) computer programming in C++, Java, or Python.

Supervisors: You will be supervised by Dr Aydin Abadi (Newcastle University) and Dr Mohammad Naseri (Flower Labs). There is an opportunity to collaborate with researchers at the National Edge AI Hub, at Newcastle University.

Note: Use code COMPDLA01 when submitting an application.

Deadline: 28 Feb, 2025.

Closing date for applications:

Contact: Aydin Abadi

More information: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/study/postgraduate-research/dla-studentships/

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