Doctoral student in information technology/electrical engineering

Doctoral student in information technology, specialising in signals and systems engineering, with special focus on signal/image processing for biometrics.

A full-time employment for one year with starting date as soon as possible. The position is extendable up to five years if the student involves in teaching and other departmental duties (no more than 20 %). More information about doctoral education in information technology at Halmstad University can be found at http://www.hh.se/english/schoolofinformationtechnology/doctoraleducation.10347.html

The position is funded by the research project “Ocular Biometrics in Unconstrained Sensing Environments” of the Swedish Research Council.

Subject description
The project is concerned with ocular biometrics in unconstrained sensing environments. Attention will be paid to the periocular modality (the part of the face surrounding the eye), which has shown a surprisingly high discrimination ability, and is the facial/ocular modality requiring the least constrained acquisition.

One goal is to contribute with methods for efficient ocular detection and segmentation. This is still a challenge, with most works relying on manual image annotation, or on detecting the full face, which may not be reliable for example under occlusion. Low resolution is another limitation. Despite low resolution is frequent in relaxed environments, few ocular reconstruction works exist. Thus, another goal will be super-resolution (SR) reconstruction of ocular images. With few works focused on iris, and none on periocular, adaptation of the many available SR methods to the particularities of ocular images is a promising avenue yet to be explored.

Ubiquitous biometrics has emerged as critical not only in light of security threats, but also due to the proliferation of consumer electronics (e.g. smartphones) in need of continuous personal authentication for a wide variety of applications. The project is expected to contribute to handle a wide range of variations in biometric imaging from these scenarios.

Work duties
Generally, the main duties of doctoral students include devoting themselves to their research studies via active participation to research projects and third cycle courses. A doctoral degree certifies that the student has completed training in Information Technology with considerable breadth and depth, and has done research in the area. The work duties can also include teaching and other departmental duties (no more than 20 %).

The aim of this research is to contribute to fundamental research problems aimed to make biometric technologies applicable at a distance and on the move, through which we relax acquisition constraints. It is proposed the use of ocular modalities, with a focus on periocular, since it has the least constrained acquisition. To accomplish the overall objectives, a number of challenges need to be overcome, constituting the specific research objectives: i) detection of ocular region in unconstrained sensing environments under variations in scale, illumination, pose, low resolution, noise, etc. by continuing ongoing research at the department on the subject (e.g. directional analysis, symmetry filters), and exploring newer deep learning approaches; and ii) super-resolution (SR) reconstruction of ocular images. Fundamental research is the aim with practical applications being test bed, including a cooperative scenario (smartphones) and uncooperative scenario (surveillance).

Requirements
A person meets the general admission requirements for education on doctoral level if she or he has: 

- Graduated with a degree on advanced level
- Completed course requirements of at least 240 credits, where at least 60 credits are on advanced level, or
- In some other way within or outside Sweden gained corresponding knowledge.

For eligibility to be admitted as student to doctoral education in signals and systems engineering it is required that the student has a degree on advanced level within computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering or another area that is relevant for the research subject.

Additional requirements:

- Good oral and written proficiency in English.

Assessment criteria
A selection is made among the applicants who fulfil the eligibility requirements. Judgment of the ability to complete the education is primarily done based on study results from basic and advanced level but also from other relevant criteria. For example, the following are especially considered:

- Knowledge and abilities relevant for the thesis work and the subject signals and systems engineering, and mathematics. These can be shown through appended documents and an interview,
- Ability to do independent work, and to formulate and approach scientific problems, e.g. through a discussion of their previous thesis work,
- Ability to perform written and oral communication in English.

Salary
Doctoral students are employees of the University and paid a salary according to a uniform salary scale, adjusted in relation to the progress in education and the first step is SEK 25 000 before taxes.

Application
Applications should be sent via Halmstad University's recruitment system MyNetwork (see link on this page). The last day to apply for the position is 2017-02-12.

The application package shall consist of:

1. a cover letter stating the purpose of the application and a brief statement of why you believe that your goals are well-matched with the goals of this position, 2. a CV that includes at least a list of previous degrees, dates, and institution, transcripts for higher education studies until most recent available a complete list of publications and a descrip­tion of previous research and other work experience and links to online copies of the most im­portant publications
3. contact information for three references.