Vacancies

Project title: Exploring students’ engagement with generative artificial intelligence tools in higher education

Project location: Discipline of Statistics and Information Systems, School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), The University of Dublin, Ireland. This project is in collaboration with the TCD School of Education. The PhD student will be expected to be a resident in Ireland for the duration of the PhD.

Project supervisors: Dr. Emma Howard (TCD School of Computer Science and Statistics) and Dr. Aibhín Bray (TCD School of Education)

Application deadline: 23rd July 2026
Start date: Anticipated start date is the 1st September 2026

PhD structure: This is a full-time 4-year structured PhD project. The funding for the project includes a tax-free stipend of €25,000 per annum. In addition to the stipend, EU/non-EU fees will be covered for four years. This PhD is funded by the Trinity Research Doctorate Award (TRDA).

PhD topic: Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) tools (e.g., ChatGPT) are widely used by students. However, how students engage with these tools is unclear. There is some evidence that inappropriate use of GenAI may be detrimental to students’ long-term learning, confidence and social development. This project seeks to examine students’ use of genAI tools and provide evidence-based guidance on how genAI tools can be responsibly integrated into Higher Education to support students’ long-term learning as AI-literate learners; thereby aligning to Trinity College Dublin’s THRIVE strategy and wider European education guidance.

Full Details

Salary: up to point 6 on the Level 2A Research Ireland New Post Doctoral Researcher June 2026
-- €53,925 (plus employer PRSI and pension contributions)
Start date: September 1st 2026
Duration: Specific Purpose Contract (estimated duration 18 months)
Where: School of Computer Science and Statistics and School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical
Sciences, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland.

Post Summary
The successful applicant will collaborate within a skilled and motivated team of scientists 
dedicated to the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods for process optimisation
of manufacturing parameters in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Roller compaction is a dry granulation process widely used in pharmaceutical manufacturing
to improve powder flowability, bulk density, and content uniformity while avoiding the use
of solvents and drying steps. In this process, a powder blend is continuously fed between two
counter-rotating rollers, where it is compressed into a dense ribbon or sheet. The compacted
ribbon is subsequently milled to produce granules with desired size and flow characteristics
for downstream processing such as tableting or capsule filling. The project aims to optimise
the roller compactor process parameters for different material property inputs in order to
achieve the desired ribbon quality metrics using AI-based optimisation.

The postdoc will conduct research that contributes to three of the following streams of work
1) define “user needs, goals, procedures” for AI-based process optimisation (in particular
focusing on Bayesian Optimisation (BO)) of the roller compactor process parameters; 2)
implement BO-based strategies and software tools to be able to apply these methods to the
process optimisation of the the roller compactor process parameters (using GPytorch,
BOtorch); 3) test and evaluate the solution on a real manufacturing process.

The position will be under the direction of Assoc. Prof. Alessio Benavoli, Prof. Anne Marie
Healy and Assoc. Prof. Deirdre D’Arcy from TCD and a pharmaceutical industry partner.

Closing Date: 30th June 2026

FULL DETAILS

We are seeking a highly motivated candidate for a fully funded postdoctoral researcher
position to work in 3D computer graphics and 3D computer vision.

The successful candidate will join the 3D Graphics and Vision research group led by
Prof. Binh-Son Hua at the School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College
Dublin, Ireland to work on topics related to generative AI in the 3D domain.

The School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin is a collegiate,
friendly, and research-intensive centre for academic study and research excellence. The
School has been ranked #1 in Ireland, top 25 in Europe, and top 100 Worldwide (QS
Subject Rankings 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021).

The postdoctoral researcher is expected to conduct fundamental research and publish
in top-tier computer vision and computer graphics conferences (CVPR, ECCV, ICCV,
SIGGRAPH) and journals (TPAMI, IJCV). Other responsibilities include supporting
graduate or undergraduate students with technical guidance and engagement in other
research activities such as paper reviews, reading group, workshop organization, etc.

The start date of the position will be as soon as possible. Contract duration is 1 year with
the option of renewing for a second year.

The successful candidate will require the following skills and knowledge:
• PhD in Computer Science or related fields;
• Strong tracked records in 3D computer graphics, 3D computer vision;
• Hands-on experience in training deep models and generative models is required;
• Hands-on experience and relevant skills in computer graphics and computer
vision application development such as OpenGL, OpenCV, CUDA, Blender is
desirable;
• Strong programming skills in C++, Python. Capability in implementing systems
from research papers and open-source software.
• Additional background in math, statistics, or physics is an advantage.

Full Description: Postdoctoral Researcher