UiT The Arctic University of Norway

UiT is a multi-campus research university in Norway and the northernmost university of the world. Our central location in the High North, our broad and diverse research and study portfolio, and our interdisciplinary qualities make us uniquely suited to meet the challenges of the future. At UiT you can explore global issues from a close-up perspective.

Credibility, academic freedom, closeness, creativity and commitment shall be hallmarks of the relationship between our employees, between our employees and our students and between UiT and our partners.

Faculty of Science and Technology

The position

A PhD position in Cyber security is available at the Department of Computer Science and the Cyber Security Research Group (CSG).

The position is for a period of four years. The nominal length of the PhD program is three years. The fourth year is distributed as 25 % each year and will consist of teaching and other duties.

The Department of Computer Science provides an active international research environment with 19 tenured faculty members, 5 adjunct professors, 5 post doctors and researchers, 7 technical/ administrative staff members and about 30 PhD students. The goal of the Department is to advance the research and teaching of computer science as a discipline, to demonstrate leadership within our areas of interest, and to contribute to society through our education, research and dissemination.

The Cyber Security Group carries out experimental systems research related to the construction of scalable, fault-tolerant, privacy-preserving, and secure information-access services. The group undertakes high-impact interdisciplinary research and innovation at the intersection of computer science, law, sports science, psychology, and medicine. The group is particularly focused on technology innovations and compliance issues in the convergence space of mobility, social networking, multimedia, cloud computing, big medical data, and machine-learning.

The workplace is at UiT in Tromsø. You must be able to start in the position within a reasonable time, within 6 months after receiving the offer.

The objective of the position is to complete research training to the level of a doctoral degree. Admission to a PhD programme is a prerequisite for employment, and the programme period starts on commencement of the position. The PhD candidate shall participate in the faculty’s organized research training, and the PhD project shall be completed during the period of employment. Information about the application process for admission to the PhD programme, application form and regulations for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor(PhD) are available here.

The project/ The position's field of research

The PhD fellow position will work on topics related to security and privacy in computer systems that process sensitive or classified data in compliance with laws and regulations. The goal is to push beyond traditional access-control mechanisms that map identities of authenticated principals to a set of static permission on objects, and explore modeling, theory, or implementation of more expressive use-based security policies that enables data providers to specify allowable uses depending on how data is actually processed, at run time. Such reactive information-flow policies should be attached to data during storage and collection and continue to apply also when data is derived or transferred. Use-based security policies change in accordance with data owners’ wishes and with changes in the mandatory governing legal frameworks and organizational guidelines.

The PhD fellow will have the opportunity to integrate with the CSG group’s ongoing project, including those related to hardware enforcement of policies using Intel SGX, secure distributed object store for compliant data processing using the FUSE filesystem, resilient diffusion network for policy updates, restrictive data sharing policies in Dataverse, etc. The PhD fellow will have the opportunity to work in an excellent international eco-system of computer systems and security researchers, as well as use-case partners in sport science, medicine, finance, or fishery.

Contact

For further information about the position, contact:

Associate Professor Håvard D. Johansen:

• phone: +47 91110987
• email: havard.johansen@uit.no

For administrative questions, please contact the Department’s administration:

• phone: +47 77644036
• email: svein.tore.jensen@uit.no

We offer

• A good academic environment with dedicated colleagues
• Flexible working hours and a state collective pay agreement
• Pension scheme through the state pension fund

More practical information for working and living in Norway can be found here: Welcome to UiT!

Qualifications

This position requires a Master’s degree or equivalent in Computer Science. A successful candidate document interest in operating systems, distributed computing, security policies, trusted execution environments, mandatory access-control mechanisms, information flow systems and theory, and/or other relevant cybersecurity topics. We will emphasize the quality and relevance of the candidate’s track record rather than volume. Since our research results are evaluated experimentally, good practical development and operations skills are necessary. Experience with modern development tools and languages like Git, Docker, Kubernetes, Rust, GO, and TypeScript will be particularly beneficial. Hands-on experience with cloud services like AWS and Azure can also be emphasized.

Candidates in the final phase of their Master study may apply. A preliminary version of the dissertation can be included if the final version is not ready before the application deadline. Information about the delivery deadline for the dissertation must be given. A completed degree must be documented before an acceptable date for commencement.

During the assessment, emphasis will be put on your potential for research in the described field, motivation and personal suitability for the position.

Admission to the PhD programme

The position requires admission to the Faculty’s PhD programme. Admission requires that the applicant has at least 5 years of higher education, equivalent to 300 ECTS. The applicant must have a Master’s thesis evaluated equivalent to 30 ECTS or more. The applicant must have average grade of C or better on the Master’s degree.

Applicants with a foreign education will be evaluated on whether the educational background is equivalent to Norwegian higher education, following national guidelines. Applicants from some countries will have to document additional higher education in order to fulfill the requirements.

Documented knowledge of English as stated here is required, and working knowledge of Norwegian or a Scandinavian language is desirable. Further information about requirements and the PhD programme is available in the Regulations PhD Faculty of Sciences and Technology.

Application

The application must be submitted electronically via www.jobbnorge.no and shall include:

• Cover letter explaining your motivation and research interests
• CV
• Diplomas, diploma supplements and transcripts (all degrees)
• Documentation on English proficiency. This website states how English profiency shall be documented.
• Written references
• Contact information to 1-3 references
• Master thesis, and any other academic works

The documentation has to be in English or a Scandinavian language.

General information

The appointment is made in accordance with State regulations and guidelines at UiT. At our website, you will find more information for applicants.

As many as possible should have the opportunity to undertake organized research training. If you already hold a PhD or have equivalent competence, we will not appoint you to this position.

A shorter period of appointment may be decided when the PhD Fellow has already completed parts of their research training programme or when the appointment is based on a previous qualifying position PhD Fellow, research assistant, or the like in such a way that the total time used for research training amounts to three years.

Remuneration for the position of PhD Fellow is in accordance with the State salary scale code 1017. A compulsory contribution of 2 % to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund will be deducted.

A good work environment is characterized by diversity. We encourage qualified candidates to apply, regardless of their gender, functional capacity or cultural background. UiT will emphasize making the necessary adaptations to the working conditions for employees with reduced functional ability.

We process personal data given in an application or CV in accordance with the Personal Data Act (Offentleglova). According to Offentleglova information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure. You will receive advance notification in the event of such publication, if you have requested non-disclosure.

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