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Success in the Laidlaw Undergraduate Internship Programme in Research and Leadership

Congratulations to Patrick Schrempf and Billy Brown who have been successful in their applications for a Laidlaw Undergraduate Internship in Research and Leadership for 2017. You can read further details about Billy and Patrick below.

Billy Brown:

I’m a fourth year Computer Science student from Belgium with too much interest for the subject. I play and referee korfball for the university, and I am fascinated by Old English and Norse history and mythology. I plan on using the Laidlaw Internship programme to get into the field of Computer Science research.

Project summary:

The Essence Domain Inference project aims to improve automated decision making by optimising the understanding of the statements used to define a problem specification. As part of the compilation of the high level Essence specification language, this project would tighten the domains to which a specified problem applies, with a domain inference algorithm.

The work is very much in the context of the recently-announced EPSRC grant working on automated constraint modelling in an attempt to advance the state of the art in solving complex combinatorial search problems. The modelling pipeline is akin to a compiler in that we refine a specification in the Essence language Billy mentions down to a number of powerful solving formalisms. The work Billy plan is to improve the refinement process and therefore the performance of the solvers, leading to higher quality solutions more quickly.

Patrick Schrempf:
I am currently a third year Computer Science student from Vienna. After enjoying doing research with the St Andrews Computer Human Interaction (SACHI) group last year, I am looking forward to the Laidlaw Internship Programme. Apart from research and studying, I enjoy training and competing with the Triathlon Club and the Pool Society.
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Funded PhD Research Studentship in Constraint Programming

Dr Chris Jefferson at the School of Computer Science is offering funding for a student to undertake PhD research in Constraint Programming.

He is looking for a highly motivated research student with an interest in Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms. The studentship offers costs of fees for UK or EU students and an annual tax-free maintenance stipend of about £13,726 per year for 3.5 years. It might also be possible to fund non-EU students on an equivalent basis, so students of any nationality are encouraged to apply. Students should normally have or expect at least an upper-2nd class Honours degree or Masters degree in Computer Science or a related discipline.

Research topics of interest to Dr Jefferson include the automatic generation of propagation algorithms (http://caj.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/pubs/statelessprop.pdf), the automated creation of combinatorial puzzles (http://caj.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/pubs/combination.pdf), or advances in Computational Group Theory. Dr Jefferson is also interested in any student suggested projects in the area of Constraint Programming.

For further information on how to apply, see our postgraduate web pages (http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/prospective-pg).

Candidates should address general queries to pg-admin-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk, or specific queries on the research topics to caj21@st-andrews.ac.uk. The application process will require an interview (by phone or voice-conference if appropriate).

The closing date for applications is June 5th 2014 and we aim to make decisions on studentship allocation by June 20th 2014.