Department of CS newsletter

I hope you all managed some quality downtime over the festive period. To help everyone reboot, the University is running a programme of free events focused on ‘Starting Well in 2025’. These include events on mental, physical, social, and financial wellbeing. Further details can be found here.

Appointment of André van Schaik to The Furber Chair in Computer Systems Engineering

I am very pleased to announce the appointment of André van Schaik to The Furber Chair in Computer Systems Engineering. André received his M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands, in 1990 and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1998. Later in 1998 he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Physiology at the University of Sydney, funded by a fellowship from the Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams memorial foundation. In 1999 he became a Senior Lecturer in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering at the University of Sydney and promoted to Reader in 2004. In 2011 he became a research professor at Western Sydney University and leader of the Biomedical Engineering and Neuromorphic Systems (BENS) Research Program in the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour, and development. In 2018, he became the Director of the International Centre of Neuromorphic Engineering. His research focuses on neuromorphic engineering and computational neuroscience.

André has authored more than 300 publications (more details), has been awarded more than 35 patents, and is a founder of four start-up companies: VAST Audio, Personal Audio, Heard Systems, and Optera Solutions. André will be joining us in April 2025 and I am sure you will all make him feel very welcome.

Congratulations to Marie Farrell
Many congratulations to Marie who has been recognised for her outstanding contributions to the IEEE Standard for Fail-Safe Designs of Autonomous and Semi-Autonomous Systems. Well done!

Please Complete the Essential Training Courses
Please ensure you all complete the University’s new and updated Essential Training Courses by Friday, 28 February. The link is here.

Upcoming Inaugural Chair Research Seminars

Finally, I hope to see many of you at our next inaugural Chair research seminars. Chenghua Lin will be speaking on January 22nd at 14:00 in Kilburn_TH 1.3. The title of Chenghua’s talk is “In Pursuit of the Meaning of Language: The Role of Large Language Models (LLMs) in Natural Language Processing and Generation”. And then the following week, on January 29th at 13:00, in Kilburn_TH 1.3, Lucas Cordeiro will be presenting his inaugural research seminar. The title of Lucas’ talk is “Towards Building Trustworthy Software and AI Systems.” See you there!

School Seminar Series details here

Andrew

The School of Engineering Undergraduate Summer Internship scheme will run again this summer. Please could any colleagues interested in offering an internship complete the proposal form. The deadline to submit your proposal is 5pm on Friday 24th January 2025. Please note that proposals will be accepted on a first come first served basis, so if you are interested do not hesitate to apply.

Funding is provided for 180 hours per internship, equivalent to 6 weeks at 30 hours per week, at an hourly rate of £12.86. Internships must start no earlier than 9th June 2025 and finish no later than 21st September 2025, but the precise days/weeks worked are to be agreed between you and the appointed student. If there are specific dates that are non-negotiable, please state this in your proposal. All projects should last the full 180 hours but no longer.

As was the case last year, our team (Information, Advice and Guidance, IAG) will shortlist the applications, so please ensure that your criteria are clearly set out in your project proposal form. Some best practice examples of internship listings from previous years are attached to this email, please refer to them if you’re unsure about any of the sections of the form or how it will be laid out on the CareerConnect page.

If you wish, you can submit more than one project proposal, though in the case that we receive more proposals than spaces we may ask you to select your first-choice proposal so that others can also run internships.

The final deadline for submission of your proposals is 5pm Friday 24th January 2025. Submissions after this time will not be reviewed.

We are excited to share some incredible news: the launch of VeriBee Ltd — a spinout from the University of Manchester, revolutionizing the creation of secure source code.

💡 At VeriBee, we’re on a mission to:

🔒 Detect and prevent security vulnerabilities before they become threats.

⚡ Deliver tools that fit seamlessly into developer workflows.

🌐 Empower teams to create software with confidence in an ever-evolving threat landscape.

This venture is rooted in 40+ years of combined academic research, 50+ awards from international competitions on software testing and verification, £20m+ of research funding, 200+ scientific papers accumulating 4000+ citations, 300+ GitHub stars and 4.6k+ downloads, collaborations with numerous industrial partners, and discovering previously undetected bugs in widely used source code.

As founders, we’re continuing our work in academia to push the boundaries of what’s possible in cybersecurity. Our company combines the best of both worlds: cutting-edge research and real-world solutions.

🤝 We seek investors, early adopters, and a passionate commercial lead to support our journey.

🔗 If you are curious about our vision, collaborating with us, and exploring our tools and services, let’s connect! Check out our webpage below or get in touch with us.

https://veribee.co/

Founders:

Prof Lucas Cordeiro, CTO

Prof Richard Allmendinger, COO and Head of AI

Dr Kaled Alshmrany Consultant, Head of Engineering and Middle East Lead

[from the library]

Event: 04-Febr-2025, 1-2.30pm

Happy New Year!

We would like to invite you and your colleagues to attend our upcoming event: Open Software, taking place on Tuesday, 4 February 2025, 1-2.30pm, as part of our Opening up Research 2024-25 Programme. 

 

Opening up Research events are open to all University staff, including professional services staff, postgraduate researchers, and early career researchers. Attending these events is a great way for research staff to utilise theirallocated professional development time and postgraduate researchers can log workshop attendance in eProg (via MyManchester). 

 

Event 3: Open Software
Hear from our speakers, including three Open Research Fellows, as they discuss how they’ve developed and shared open-source software and code to support reuse and reproducibility in research. The session will include a panel discussion, with time for tea, coffee, and networking with other attendees.

 

• Date: Tuesday, 4 February 2025, 1-2.30pm.
• Location: University Place, Room 2.220.
• Speakers: 

• Murilo Marinho: Open Research Fellow and Lecturer in Robotics Engineering Systems, Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering.

• • Alex Henderson: Open Research Fellow and Senior Technical Specialist (Digital Systems Architect), Department of Chemical Engineering.
  • Matt Parkes: Open Research Fellow and Research Statistician, Division of Population Health, Health Services Research & Primary Care.

 

• Sign Up Here

 

Stay Updated
if you are interested in attending future events or would like to contribute to an upcoming event, please check ourwebsite for the latest updates. 

You can also subscribe to our Open Research Digest to receive the most recent updates on open research at the University and the broader research landscape.

 

For more information or any queries, please contact the Office for Open Research team atopenresearch@manchester.ac.uk

Please see our invitation to the forthcoming Team Research Training sessions in February 2025!

 

 Register now for the Team Research 'Teamwork and Collaboration Principles for Successful Research' training workshop. 

  

What is it about? 

Collaborative, interdisciplinary team-based ways of working and skills are becoming increasingly important in the fundability and impact assessment of research outputs. The University of Manchester’s “Teams Build Dreams” Team Research Programme is dedicated to providing you with the necessary skills and insights to thrive in this increasingly collaborative research environment. 

This training workshop is designed to equip you with valuable tools and practical skills to enhance your collaborative efforts and your personal and professional development. 

  When is it? We are running the same workshop twice, so you can choose which date works for you: 12^th & 13^th February 2025

What time? The day runs from 9.45am to 3.45pm each day. 

Where is it being held? Both days are held in the Congregation Room in Vaughan House at the University of Manchester. 

Am I eligible to come? Our training is open to all University of Manchester staff: PS, Technical, Academic. 

Are refreshments and lunch provided? Yes! Of course! 

 

Get your tickets now!  

12^th February 2025 – Register here 

13^th February 2025 – Register here  

  

Any questions, please contact us at TeamResearch@manchester.ac.uk 

  

We look forward to meeting you.

https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/ukri-metascience-ai-early-career-fellowships/

Deadline: 10-Apr-25

The UK Metascience Unit will fund a cohort of early career fellows for up to 2 years to build our understanding of how the growing adoption of AI is changing the research landscape, including what metascientific, ethical, epistemic, and socioeconomic questions this raises, and how governments, industry, and funding organisations should respond.

FSE Research Services Sharepoint Site – access information and resources to navigate research application and award processes. You can find contact details for the RS team and lots of other useful information.

We'll soon be sending out a call to host 12 interns in Summer 2025 at the Department of Computer Science, The University of Manchester, to work on AI-related projects, via the Google DeepMind Research Ready award.

See The University of Manchester Faculty of Science and Engineering’s activity on LinkedIn