Big Data Machine Learning for Human Behaviour Modelling (2018)

What you get

You will receive:

• fully funded tuition fees for 3 and a half years (at the UK/EU rate)
• a tax-free bursary for living costs for 3 and a half years. For 2018/19 this is £14,777 per year.
• funds for computing, books, open access publishing, travel to/from the industrial partner and attendance at conferences and workshops.

You may also supplement your income with paid teaching (with your supervisor’s agreement).

Type of award

Postgraduate Research

PhD project

Supervisor: Professor Istvan Kiss and Dr Luc Berthouze

A fully-funded 3-and-a-half year PhD position is available in the Department of Mathematics in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex.

It is the result of a partnership between Quotemehappy.com, an on-line only company part of the Aviva group, and the University of Sussex.

Supervision of the research involves a team led by Professor Istvan Kiss and Dr Luc Berthouze as well as data analysts from Quotemehappy.com.

The insurance industry operates in a big data environment that presents various challenges to state of the art machine learning and human behaviour modelling.

The aim of this research is to leverage the opportunity offered by working with a leading insurance provider to probe and extend existing techniques.

The three broad avenues of exploration include:

• augmenting existing classification and regression algorithms with domain-specific features based on either data provided by the industrial partner or publicly available data
• capturing heterogeneity in people’s behaviour to inform more efficient marketing campaigns with `smarter’ targeting of customers
• using the developed methods to test the cost-effectiveness of existing marketing campaigns and inform the design of new ones.

Within the terms of this studentship, you will be expected to spend some time on company premises (central London) and act as a bridge between the academic and industry partners.

Eligibility

To be eligible, you must:

• be a UK/European Union (EU) student.
• have or expect to have a UK undergraduate/master’s degree, or equivalent, in Mathematics or a related subject. We particularly encourage you to apply if you have a Data Science or Machine Learning specialism.

Deadline

14 September 2018 14:44

How to apply

Apply through the postgraduate application system and select the full time PhD in Mathematics with a September 2018 start date. The intended start date for the project is the 1st October 2018, but you will see only the option for a September start date, this will be updated to October when the offer is made to the successful candidate. 

Applications will be considered until the position has been filled.

When you apply, you should include:

• the supervisor’s name (Professor Istvan Kiss) in the ‘Suggested supervisor’ section
• Big Data Machine Learning for Human Behaviour Modelling in the ‘Award detail’ section
• a research proposal/personal statement which describes your suitability for the project
• 2 academic references
• your transcripts from any previously obtained degrees. If you have not yet completed your undergraduate degree, you can provide an interim transcript or record of any marks obtained so far.

The position will be filled as soon as a suitable candidate is found so you are encouraged to apply as soon as you are able to. 

Due to the high volume of applications received, you may only hear from us if your application is successful.

Contact us

Email Professor Istvan Kiss at i.z.kiss@sussex.ac.uk  and Dr Luc Berthouze at l.berthouze@sussex.ac.uk if you have a question about the project

Email mpsresearchsupport@sussex.ac.uk if you have a question about applying, funding or eligibility.