"Research Associate/Senior Research Associate in Operational Research"

Project overview

Lancaster University’s Department of Management Science is seeking a Senior/Research Associate for a project “Tackling new simulation and optimization challenges towards self-organizing manufacturing digital twins”, funded by EPSRC and the NSF, and a collaboration between Lancaster University and Georgia Institute of Technology. This is a full-time post for 2 years. We would ideally like someone to start in January 2026.

The project is seeking to establish statistical approaches to validating and calibrating Digital Twins (DTs) based on stochastic simulators and using these for real-time optimisation. DTs are an exciting development in simulation, allowing online predictions and system control. However, there remain many theoretical challenges. The outputs are stochastic and multivariate, and each period faces a different context, breaking typical data assumptions. The focus of this role will begin with calibration, analysing distance metrics between simulated and system performance both theoretically and computationally, and then feeding into an optimisation routine. This will enable a DT to respond to changes in the real-world to enhance its capabilities.

Role responsibilities

As part of our team, you will be responsible for:

• theoretical analysis of methods for calibrating and optimising simulation-based DTs.
• developing and maintaining research code implementing these ideas
• writing up the research findings for publication and conference presentations
• assisting in disseminating research outcomes to key stakeholders.

About you

We are keen to hear from candidates with:

• a PhD (or close to completion) in Operational Research (OR), Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Industrial Engineering or a related discipline
• experience of theoretical analysis of statistical estimators
• excellent programming skills, ideally in Python
• enthusiasm to work collaboratively with an international team.

Why work with us

Lancaster is a research-intensive university. REF 2021 rated 99% of Lancaster's overall research environment as 4* 'world leading' or 3* 'internationally excellent'. The Department of Management Science hosts one of the largest OR groups in the UK. Lancaster University is rated in the top 100 worldwide (QS ranking) for Statistics and OR. This is a unique opportunity to collaborate with, and visit, academics at H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, one of the world’s most important OR groups.

Lancaster is a friendly, affordable city in North-West England. We're within two hours’ travel of most major UK cities and surrounded by scenic mountains and coastline.

Find out more about our employee benefits and life at Lancaster on our website - https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/jobs;

Contract and contact

This post is offered on a full-time, fixed term basis. We are happy to talk about flexible working.

For more information and an informal chat about the role, please contact Luke Rhodes-Leader, Lecturer in Management Science (l.rhodes-leader@lancaster.ac.uk).

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