About the Project
Understanding the world around us is a fundamental challenge for social and industrial impact. This PhD project fits within the scope of spatial reasoning, solving AI problems from theoretical to real-world applications from a vision/image perspective. Research students are encouraged to work on novel problems/domains that challenge the trend of large annotated datasets. Hence, much of my labs' research is in the direction of arts, humanities, and social science, which poses complex reflections…
on how AI can perceive the world while solving the big challenges in AI.
The research project will draw on the following research areas:
- World Models
- Visual Question and Answering
- Abstract & Iconography Reasoning
- Knowledge Retrieval & Reasoning
- Planning and reasoning
- Visual Narratives and Digital Storytelling
- Scene Understanding (including Scene Graphs)
- Representing 3D Space (3D / NeRF / Gaussian Splatting)
- Language and Vision
- Multimodal Large Language Model (MLLM)
With possible application areas in:
- Art History
- Assistive Technologies
- Augmented Reality
- Autonomous Vehicles
- Cultural Heritage & Digital Humanities
- Robotics
Your supervision experience
You will be supervised by Dr Stuart James, an Assistant Professor in Visual Computing at Durham University and Co-Director of the newly formed Durham Centre for Digital Humanities. Stuart's research focuses on Visual Reasoning to understand the layout of visual content, from iconography, such as sketches, to 3D scene understanding, and their implications for methods of interaction. He was a Co-I on the RePAIR EU FET, DCitizens EU Twinning, BoSS EU Lighthouse, and MEMEX EU H2020 RIA projects, the latter coordinated at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and focused on using cultural heritage technologies to support social inclusion. Stuart has previously held research and postdoctoral positions at IIT, as well as postdoctoral positions at University College London (UCL) and the University of Surrey. At the University of Surrey, Stuart was awarded his PhD on visual information retrieval for sketches. Stuart holds honorary roles at UCL and UCL Digital Humanities, and is an international collaborator with ITI/LARSyS. He also regularly organises the Vision for Art and Culture (VISART) workshop and humanities-oriented tutorials, was Program Chair of the British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) 2021, and co-organises the BMVA Computer Vision Summer School biannually.
During the PhD study, you will be integrated into the VIVID Research Group in the Department of Computer Science, providing opportunities for networking with peers and reading groups. You will receive a hands-on approach to supervision working closely with Stuart.
Our Resources
Durham University hosts the UK regional supercomputer, Bede, with 128 NVIDIA V100 GPUs. On top of that, our Department hosts a NVIDIA CUDA Centre that caters to the increasing GPU demands for research purposes. As well as Hamilton HPC with 15,616 CPU cores, 36TB RAM and 1.9PB disk space.
Our laboratories have an array of computer science equipment and sensors, including Cameras, LiDAR, RADAR, EEG, drones, robots, sensor-mounted vehicles, and more.
The Neural Artefact Lab also provides a dedicated 2.5m square black-out digitisation space. Including controllable LED lighting, a turntable, and robotic arms, as well as task-specific capture equipment (e.g. foam book mounting). The facility also provides AR/VR setups, including Meta VR headsets and various mobile phones.
Interdisciplinary Opportunities
In the future, you will collaborate with people from a variety of backgrounds. At Durham, you will be encouraged to look for opportunities to collaborate across faculties to identify unique and challenging research questions.
For example, this could include working with Durham University's archives and special collections, which contain over 70,000 books published before 1850, medieval manuscripts, maps, prints and photographs. The development of manuscript and book collections at Durham University began in its earliest days. William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham, who was instrumental in founding the University, presented a foundation collection in January 1833. The University also took custody of Bishop John Cosin's Library, still housed in its original building on Palace Green. Further gifts of rare books and manuscript collections were received, and the University Library expanded to occupy rooms in the 15th-century Exchequer building next to Cosin's Library. All these collections are now housed at Palace Green Library, along with the archives of the University itself, dating back to 1832. They represent a rich resource for learning, teaching and research and are available for anyone to consult. They also form part of the cultural heritage of Durham and in particular, its World Heritage Site.
More detail about Durham University's Archives and special collections: https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/library/archives-and-special-collections/
Durham University
Durham University is a world top-100 university and is ranked the 6th in the UK. As a member university of the elite Russell Group, Durham University focuses on research excellence delivered by world-leading academics. It is the third oldest university in England, following Oxford and Cambridge, with the campus's Cathedral and Castle being a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is located in the city of Durham in North East England – one of the safest cities in the UK with an affordable living cost.
Entry Requirements
- A relevant undergraduate or master's degree with good scores.
- Passion for research and generating new knowledge.
- Knowledge of modern programming languages.
- Meet Durham's English requirements (https://www.dur.ac.uk/study/international/entry-requirements/english-language-requirements/).
How to Apply
Please send an email with your resume, transcripts, and any supporting documents to Dr Stuart James (see https://stuart-james.com/ for contact details) for an initial discussion.
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