PhD position in electromobility - machine learning, data security, and privacy

Published: 2023-10-19

Electrification and digitalisation are among the largest areas for the future in the conversion to sustainable societies. The Department of Electrical Engineering conducts successful research and education in the areas - renewable energy sources, electric vehicles, industrial IoT, 6G communication and wireless sensor networks as well as research and education within Life Science, smart electronic sensors and medical systems. The Department of Electrical Engineering is an international workplace with around 150 employees that all contribute to important technical energy and health challenges at the Ångström Laboratory.

Come and work with us!
The position will be at the Division of Signals and Systems, at the Department of Electrical Engineering. Here you will find a friendly work environment with a large doctoral network and a variety of experimental projects. The Division of Signals and Systems collaborates with Swedish companies - public and private - and stakeholders in the different fields of research. We look forward to receiving your application. Join us and build the future with us!

Project description

Electrification is vital for a successful transition to a sustainable, fossil-free society. However, capacity bottlenecks in the electric grid threatens to slow down the transition towards a more sustainable energy system. This project aims at contributing towards the development of smart, safe and resilient energy communities in part by developing a framework for microgrid management based on real load models together with privacy-preserving machine learning methods. The proposed methods will be demonstrated at Dansmästaren, a test bed for research on smart EV charging and energy management, located in Uppsala. This position includes close collaboration with a PhD candidate at the Division of Electricity as well as collaboration with industrial partners such as Volvo Cars, CEVT, E.ON, and Vattenfall.

We have an exciting work environment desinged by the doctoral student and the research team together. The doctoral student will be supervised by at least two supervisors. The Department of Electrical Engineering gives a salary supplement for doctoral students at the department. 

Duties

The main duties of the doctoral student is research in the area of data security and privacy in machine learning with applications in energy flexibilty services. In particular, the doctoral student will develop secure, distributed machine learning methods (e.g., based on federated learning, differential privacy, and homomorphic encryption) for learning of electricity production and consumption models in the context of microgrids and energy communities. Furthermore, the student will implement and evaluate the methods in a real-life testbed at Dansmästaren based on models and data collection interfaces developed in collaboration with the Division of Electircity.

The work as a doctoral student includes writing scientific publications and presenting their research results orally in various contexts such as project group meetings as well and international conferences. The main task of a doctoral student is to devote to the doctoral education, which includes both participation in research projects and doctoral education courses. The duties also include participating in teaching and other institutional to a maximum of 20% of the working time.

Requirements

• A master’s degree in electrical engineering, information technology, computer science, engineering physics, or similar,
• Specialization in signals and systems (signal processing and control theory), machine learning, statistical inference methods, or computational science.
• Programming knowledge of programming in Python and C/C++.
• Very good oral and written proficiency in English.
• Personal qualities such as strong motivation, good collaboration and communication skills with other researchers. You should be focused, structured and be able to work effectively both individually and in groups.

Also, Additional qualifications

• Good oral and written proficiency in Swedish,
• Hands-on experience with experimental and lab work is a merit.

Rules governing PhD students are set out in the Higher Education Ordinance chapter 5, §§ 1-7 and in Uppsala University's rules and guidelines.

About the employment
The employment is a temporary position according to the Higher Education Ordinance chapter 5 § 7. Scope of employment 100 %. Starting date as agreed. Placement: Uppsala 

For further information about the position, please contact: Roland Hostletter, roland.hostettler@angstrom.uu.se och Valeria Castellucci, valeria.castellucci@uu.se

Please submit your application by December 15, 2023 UFV-PA 2023/3862.

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