Senior Research Associate - AI Agent Security (2 posts)

We are seeking candidates to join our AI security group at Lancaster University, and become part of this rapidly growing research field.

This position focuses on AI Agent Security, and specifically Shadow AI. ShadowAI – the deployment and use of Artificial Intelligence within an organisation without knowledge or approval from security teams – is a major issue within companies, given the rapid uptake of agents within organisations. ShadowAI is often hidden or embedded within software applications, and introduces threats spanning model backdoors, coordinated attacks, AI safety issues, and data leakage. This is particularly problematic given the introduction of ShadowAI at the computing edge to the wider organisation. Current tools and methods proposed across both academia and industry are unable to address this issue.

In this project, you will research how to defend AI agents from cyber attack. This research will provide opportunities resources atypical to a postdoctoral post, including a rapidly growing AI security lab, a large-scale GPU datacenter containing state-of-the-art foundation models, as well as direct collaboration with an award-winning AI security company Mindgard (https://mindgard.ai/), where you will work with industry researchers to tackle real-world problems. This project is a rare opportunity to become among the very few researchers in the world specialising in AI system security – an area that is becoming increasingly sought after in both academia and industry.

You will have a PhD in Computer Science, with expertise within cyber security, Artificial Intelligence, or distributed systems. Direct experience within AI security, Adversarial Machine Learning, or workload anomaly detection would be a bonus. Findings of this research are intended to be rapidly disseminated into industry, thus experience with developing prototypes and good software development skills are desirable.

The Edge AI Hub (https://edgeaihub.co.uk) is a £10M EPSRC project dedicated to systematic understanding of Cyber Disturbances in the context of edge AI. Successful candidates are expected to contribute to the research theme by carrying out cutting edge research work in security and privacy of AI applications and processes on the edge. This is a unique opportunity to work with an international team of researchers spanning multiple institutions in academia and industry as part of the flagship UKRI hub in AI.

The School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University was ranked 14th in the UK for research power according to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021, with 94% of research rated world-leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*). Lancaster University Cybersecurity represents an area of major strategic importance for Lancaster and we have recently announced a £19m programme of investment in Security and Protection Science. Lancaster University is the only institution in the Northwest recognised as an ACE-CSR, ACE-CSE, and offering a double-certified (NCSC and BCS) MSc in Cyber Security.