Future Research Opportunities
Current vacancies
Ph.D. research positions: I'm always looking for bright Ph.D. students (see the General information about applying for a Ph.D. place below).
Postdoctoral research associate positions: Currently none, though the funding situation is often fluid so I welcome speculative enquiries from excellent applicants.
General vacancies information
I often have funding available for people wanting to undertake innovative projects areas like secure computer architecture and massively parallel computing, etc. (see my recent publications to gauge research research areas). Work in the group involves a great deal of prototyping on FPGAs exploiting the latest design techniques, e.g. the use of the Bluespec SystemVerilog language.
A strong background in computer science is essential together with some experience of hardware design for FPGAs. Those with electrical engineering as their first degree may need to gain some further computer science experience, e.g. by undertaking our Masters in Advanced Computer Science. Full funding (maintenance and fees) is available for three years for applicants from the EU and sometimes from overseas.
Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Simon Moore, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge (email simon.moore at the domain cl.cam.ac.uk).
General information about applying for a Ph.D. place
If you would like to undertake a PhD in my group, then the first step is to read about the current projects to find out what we are interested in. Then write your own research proposal of around 500 words. This proposal is required for a formal application, but I am willing to look at, and comment on, a draft proposal. The proposal should identify interesting research questions for which you might find answers during your Ph.D. Your ability to produce this document is part of the assessment criteria.
Applying
For the application procedure, please see:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/admissions/phd/
Without the basic paperwork we cannot progress your application. Your application needs to include a research statement - see above.
Funding
As is the norm, I have a few grant applications in the pipeline and am always interested in bright graduates who would like to undertake a PhD. I typically take two PhD students per annum, as do other lecturers in the Computer Architecture Group. See the group's current research projects to better understand the research interested of the Computer Architecture group. It is also good to look at what the group members are working on. For further information on funding, please see the Graduate Prospectus and their funding guide. If you are living outside the EU, then you should apply for a Gates Cambridge Scholarship and other awards (see the graduate prospectus funding guide). These applications for funding run concurrently with the application to the University. Note that whilst I may have full funding for students from the EU, students from outside the EU may need some top-up funding, though in rare cases I am to help. Therefore, it is particularly helpful if applicants from outside the EU apply in sufficient time to be eligible for funding from one of the trusts that covers overseas fees.
Summer places
I usually have 2 summer internship positions sponsored by Altera exclusively for Cambridge students who have completed Part Ib in Computer Science.
I'm afraid that I do not usually have funds available for other summer students, nor time to take them on.
Note to applicants from India: May to July is not our main summer time in Cambridge - our main summer term is July to September. In June we have our exam. finals so May and June are busy. As a consequence I do not take on interns at this time. Moreover I currently do not have suitable funding.
Visiting PhD students
I have a large research team so find that I do not usually have time (nor space) to accommodate visiting PhD students (e.g. for a 1 year placement).
Background Reading
The following texts give a good background to the work undertaken in my group:
- Computer architectures texts, e.g. Patterson and Hennessy's books.
- Principles and Practises of Interconnection Networks by William J. Dally and Brian Towles.
- CMOS VLSI Design : A Circuits and Systems Perspective (3rd Edition) by Neil H.E. Weste, David Harris
To get further background, you are also most welcome to download some of my research papers.