Department of CS newsletter

Upcoming Seminar and Departmental Forum

I hope to see many of you at our next research seminar where Mingfei Sun will be presenting on Deep Reinforcement Learning for Complex Decision Making. The seminar will take place in LT1.3 at 1300 on March 13th. The following week - on March 20th at 1400 - we will have our next Departmental Forum in IT407 at which there will be an update on our managed growth in Computer Science project. Following both of these events there will be a social gathering in the common room.

Appointments Update

We recently completed interviewing for the lecturing position in Novel Concepts/Technologies in Low Energy Computing. I’m pleased to inform you that we have been able to make two offers - one in the area of neuromorphic computing, and the other in computational spintronics. Once start dates and contracts etc. have been agreed and signed I will be able to provide you with more information.

This week we began shortlisting for the NLP lecturing post. Again, we have a strong field with 42 applications and I will update you as we move through the recruitment process.

A reminder to complete PGR eProg records

Please do remember to update the eProg records of your PGRs. An audit was recently carried out by the Doctoral Academy and we’re not quite as on top of this as we could be. The link to complete eProg forms is here.

Congratulations to Alex Frangi

Many congratulations to Alex Frangi whose spin-out company, adsilico, has just received a total of £3.5m in investment from Northern Gritstone (£2m) and Parkwalk Advisors (£1.5m). The company has emerged from Alex’s research funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering. Congratulations Alex!

You can read more about the news:here

Zahra interviewed on Radio Manchester

Finally, it was great to hear Zahra Montazeri being interviewed on BBC Radio Manchester last week on International Women’s Day - the interview starts at around the 3 hour 26 minute mark and is well worth a listen here

Andrew

Dear All

Please could I remind you about the need to follow due process when booking travel. The University Travel information pages are here, and the policy is here here

There is still a requirement to follow the Travel Risk Assessment Flowchart and complete the appropriate risk assessment documentation for your destination. Remember that if your trip involves travel to a country classed as high risk then you need to follow the correct procedure, and get a risk assessment completed and approved before any trips can be confirmed. Approval of the risk assessment is first required from the FSE Safety team, and then by Head of School

We must continue to tackle our CO2 emissions from travel for work purposes, so here is a reminder of the guidance on domestic and European air travel: More Information.

Please refer to the School Sharepoint for all information relating to travel: Travel (sharepoint.com). The Sharepoint has useful information on:

• Key Travel – setting up a profile and how to share a quote
• Link to the University Insurance pages
• Link to Export Controls information
• Travel risk assessment information
• PGR travel information

Please contact CSOps if you need guidance with any of the above processes.

This is a reminder for the Dan Maydan Prize in Nanoscience Research Call for Nominations 2024, on behalf of the Hebrew University's Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

kindly assist us to distributing the Call for Nominations at the University of Manchester (the department of materials), among your colleagues.

Additional information about the prize and previous years laureates can be found on our website: https://nano.huji.ac.il/about-award [nano.huji.ac.il]

Please note that we have postponed the submission date until March 14, 2024.

Submission should be sent to huj-nano@savion.huji.ac.il

If you have any question, don't hesitate to contact us.

In collaboration with Digital Futures and the Turing Innovation Catalyst Manchester, Creative Manchester are thrilled to announce an exciting series of events focused on the intersection of people working in creative, technology and digital sectors. These events are designed to bring together the vibrant community of digital and creative professionals in Greater Manchester and are in line with the aspirations of the Greater Manchester city region to develop the CreaTech sector and to facilitate partnerships between The University and the wider GM Business Community.

As a partner of Creative Manchester, we wanted to personally invite you to the CreaTech Network | Digital Artisans event, which focusses on bringing together academics from the field of Computer Sciences with those working in artisan arts and crafts looking to learn to exploit the opportunities of CreaTech and position themselves at the intersection of the digital and creative sectors.

The CreaTech Network | Digital Artisans
Date: 14 March, 3pm - 6pm
Location: GRIT Studios, Great Northern Warehouse, M3 4EN

We will begin with lightning talks by AR mural artist Oskar With A K and visual artist Andee Collard before guests join interactive breakout sessions surrounding a variety of CreaTech-related themes. To close we invite everyone to stay for networking drinks and canapées.

The event is free, and everyone interested in this topic is welcome to attend. Please follow this link to Eventbrite to find out more and register.

We hope to be able to welcome you at GRIT Studios on 14^th March for this exciting event.

Feeling lost in the maze of privacy discussions? Then join us for a thought-provoking discussion led by Kieron O'Hara, author of the acclaimed "The Seven Veils of Privacy".

Date & time: 20th March | 12:30 - 14:30

Location: Engineering Building A - Room 3A.071

Kieron O'Hara will unveil a clear and comprehensive framework to navigate the seemingly endless arguments around privacy and your rights. Discover why the clashing perspectives on social norms, human rights, personal preferences, and data processing often lead to frustration and confusion. Gain clarity and engage in meaningful dialogue as we dissect the different facets of privacy and work towards a path forward. Don't miss this chance to break through the ambiguity and shape your own understanding of privacy in today's complex world!

There are limited seats available, so register now! http://tinyurl.com/3rdk9evt

The Centre for Digital Trust and Society leads and delivers activity for the Digital Trust and Security theme within The University’s Digital Futures Research Platform, including the Digital Trust and Security Seminar Series. These events are designed to highlight key insights into developments, challenges and identify areas for growth within Digital Trust & Security. Digital Futures is a highly interdisciplinary network that operates across the whole range of The University’s digital research.

The Digital Futures network serves as a dynamic and collaborative hub exclusively designed for the community of PhD students within The University of Manchester, who are conducting research related to digital topics. The primary objective of this network is to help students to develop interdisciplinary, cross faculty relationships that can lead to new perspectives on their research.

Our next networking event will take place on Tuesday 30th April 2024, from 14:00 – 15:30, on The University of Manchester campus. Register today to secure your spot: http://tinyurl.com/mry2hntd  

We are also looking for PhD students to present their research – this will be an interdisciplinary group, so it’s an opportunity to share your knowledge outside of your usual field and to develop interesting conversations and new perspectives on your work. If you would like to present your research, please contact kitty.lo@manchester.ac.uk by Tuesday 23rd April 2024, 5pm. Speaker spaces are limited, so we recommend reaching out at your earliest convenience to secure your spot and avoid disappointment.

Now that Duties Allocation has been announced for the 2024/2025 academic year, I would like to ask course unit leaders to provide the list of software packages they will need for teaching in the Linux image for the coming year.

The 2024/2025 Linux image will be based on Ubuntu 22.04, and we hope to have an image ready for testing as soon as possible. To do this we'd like to get the list of required packages by the start of April.

Please could all course unit leaders complete the survey at https://forms.microsoft.com/e/rmUA5CcWqX. If you are course unit leader for several courses, please fill in a separate survey for each course unless the software package requirements are the same for all of your courses.

If possible, please submit the software requirements for your course before Tuesday 2 April. If you do not know all the software requirements for your course yet, please tell us that via the survey, along with details of any requirements you do know, and when you might know the complete list.