Full-time, fixed-term for 3 years
The advancement of life sciences through understanding of fundamental biological processes such as DNA sequences or Protein folds is being accelerated with the emergence of high performance computational techniques. Many bio-molecular modeling problems require a thousand fold speed-up for realistic analysis and therefore innovative massively parallel computing models and techniques are being actively researched in tackling these grand challenge problems in high-performance computational biology.
The aim of this research is to develop a range of scalable parallel algorithms for a particular problem (e.g, sequence alignment, protein folding, phylogeny, etc.,). More specifically hybrid programming models, which combines existing models, will be investigated in the design of scalable, memory efficient parallel algorithms. The parallelization of algorithms related to biological problems will pose significant challenges as the data models required are irregular (sparse graph structures) in contrast with dense regular structures in traditional high performance computing applications. Dynamic load balancing schemes will therefore also be a topic of investigation in this research study.
The research programme itself will form an integral part of the research agenda of the Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Architectures Laboratory (PEDAL), an established group of which the research student will be a member. The appointed student will therefore benefit from the support of this group through transfer of ideas and skills. PEDAL also hosts the ACET centre (Advanced Computing for Emerging Technologies) which provides a stimulating research environment for research into the broad area of Computational Science. The student will additionally benefit from interactions with the researchers in this centre too.
Further details may be obtained from Dr M. Manjunathaiah., email: m.manjunathaiah@reading.ac.uk
Applicant's Profile
Candidates should hold a first class honours Bachelor's degree or a Master's degree in computer science or a cognate area. Knowledge of parallel computing, acquired from a formal taught module, is desirable.
Funding
This studentship covers both academic fees (£3300 for UK and EU students) and subsistence (£12940) for a total of £16240 per annum for three years. Due to the nature of the funding additional academic fees for overseas students are not covered.
Applications
Application forms are available from Miss Claire Evans ( c.e.evans@reading.ac.uk ), School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AY, UK. Application forms are also available from http://www.reading.ac.uk/sse/pg-research/sse-pgrlife.asp
An application should include a CV, two sealed reference letters, copies of academic transcripts and degree certificates, English certificate if English is not your first language. All the application documents should be sent to the address given above.
Please quote Reference CE1903
The University is an Equal Opportunities Employer.Closing date: 30th April 2008
Interviews (if required) will take place W/C 12th May.
