UDAC128@oak.cc.kcl.ac.UK (11/21/90)
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON The expanding Department of Computing at King's College London invites applications for one or more posts of lecturer, which is the British equivalent of assistant professor. The University of London is the biggest in the UK and is organised as a federation of institutions. King's College London is one of the largest and oldest of these, and is distinguished in teaching and research at University level. The Department of Computing is located on the Strand Campus which is in the heart of central London. Preferred research areas include software engineering, design and analysis of parallel algorithms, and highly parallel architectures specialized for purposes such as pattern matching. Candidates should have a PhD in Computer Science, or an equivalent qualification, and should provide clear evidence of high quality and strong productivity in research. Salary will be on the Lecturer A or Lecturer B scale in the range L12,086 to L22,311 per annum plus L1,767 London Allowance. (L denotes a British Pound, current exchange rate 1L=1.98 USA$) Further particulars and an application form may be obtained upon request from The School Secretary, School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK, telephone +44 -71-873 2270. Completed application forms must reach the School Secretary not later than 18th February, 1991. Electronic mail address for informal enquiries is udac128@oak.cc.kcl.ac.uk. Further Particulars of a post of LECTURER IN COMPUTER SCIENCE The Department During a period of reorganisation of London University in the mid-1980's, Chelsea College and Queen Elizabeth College merged with King's College London, which now has about 7,000 students. King's College had a very distinguished scientific tradition since its foundation in 1829, but lacked a Department of Computer Science until the mid-1980's. The present Department of Computing was set up in 1984, incorporating a Department of Computer Science that had previously been at Westfield College, London University. During the late 1980's the Department of Computing at King's developed modestly. The College has now decided to expand the department, with particular support for research of outstanding callibre. There should be approximately ten new academic appointments during the period September 1989 to September 1991. The Department of Computing is located on the Strand Campus of King's College, mainly in the original College building, which is listed as being of special architectural interest. The Strand Campus is in central London, between the Aldwych and the River Thames. The Department currently has about nineteen academic staff posts including the lectureship that is now being advertised. The number of full time equivalent students in 1990-91 is around 250. The Department's main computing power comes from its Sequent multiprocessor system running under Unix. Besides this there is considerable provision of personal computers and other equipment connected directly or via spider ports to a departmental ethernet. The College Computing Centre, which is located nearby but administratively separate from the Department of Computing, has a powerful VAX cluster running under VMS. Via the College Computing Centre there is access to a Cray supercomputer at the University of London Computer Centre. Teaching We offer single-subject BSc degree courses in Computer Science and also in Software Engineering. We have joint degrees with Mathematics, Electronics and Management. Our undergraduate curriculum covers material that is fundamental in Computer Science degree courses, and we offer a considerable range of options, including VLSI design. Jointly with another department we teach an MSc course entitled Logical foundations of Information Technology, for students with first degrees in Computing or other Information Technology subjects. We teach during two twelve-week Semesters during each year. As a rough guide, a newly-appointed lecturer would normally be expected to give lectures and have other class-contact amounting to an average of three hours per week over the two semesters, but the actual load could turn out to be more or less than this. Lecturers are also expected to supervise undergraduate students' individual project work, and the contact time for this is typically in the region of three hours per week throughout both semesters. Moreover, lecturers normally supervise the research of a number of postgraduate students working for the London University PhD or MPhil degree. As well as teaching, lecturers serve as tutors to a number of undergraduates whom they are required to see regularly. The responsibilities of tutors are primarily pastoral. Research In Software Engineering, departmental research activites range from formal specification and its application to program verification through to new models of the software life-cycle. In requirements capture the department is collaborating in a project funded by the Information Engineering Directorate and the Science and Engineering Research Council. Further areas of activity are information system methodologies and computer aided software engineering. There is also a rapidly expanding interest in software maintenance especially as related to C programs. Besides software engineering, the department is active in design and analysis of parallel algorithms for multiprocessor systems. There is strong interest in string processing algorithms, for example to find periodicities and statistics of susbstrings within a given string, with practical applications in biology, concerned with DNA molecules. Moreover, parallel algorithms for sorting, linear recurrences, and quantum chemical applications are being developed for commercially available supercomputers. The department is also actively interested in highly parallel systems in which the main parallelism is of elements that are very much simpler than stored-instruction processors. Within an ordinary computer, addition is usually done by parallel circuits for individual bits of numbers. There is research activity in circuit parallelism (not multiprocessor parallelism nor neural networks), for implementation of basic relational operations that are frequently applied in database and expert systems. The department does have interest in neural networks, for example their application in the automatic recognition of speech. The lectureship The person appointed to the lectureship will be required to carry out research of high quality and dependable quantity consistent with membership of a department in a high-prestige central-London College. Previous excellence, present promise and strong productivity are more important than the choice of areas of research specialisation. There will, however, be preference for candidates whose research interests are consistent with existing departmental interests outlined above. There will also be preference for research areas that are strategically complementary to those of other Colleges of London University. As well as lecturing, examining, supervising research and project work, and serving as tutor, the appointee may be required to perform such administrative and other duties as may from time to time be prescribed by the Head of the Department. However, it is currently departmental policy that these administrative and other duties will in practice amount to nothing at all, or at least be light, for academic staff who are strong in research. Applications for the post of Lecturer in Computer Science Applications, consisting of an application form (including names and addresses of two referees), resume (i.e. curriculum vitae), and list of publications should be sent to the School Secretary, School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, from whom application forms and further particulars may be obtained. Short-listed applicants will be invited for interview, with reasonable expenses paid by King's. Applicants will normally also be invited to meet the Head of the Department of Computing, together with members of staff, and give a research seminar at King's before the interview. Although a single Lecturer post is being advertised, there is scope for making more that one appointment, and research collaborators are encouraged to apply. If work permits are required for appointees, administrative staff of King's will look after the details. Informal Enquiries Prospective applicants are welcome to have an informal exploratory discussion with the Head of the Department, Professor J.R. Ullmann, telephone +44-71-873 2588. Supplementary information for applicants from Overseas Introduction Primarily for applicants from the USA, this document has been written to supplement the Further Particulars of a post of Lecturer in Computer Science at King's College London. The structure of the University of London The University of London is the largest in the UK and has approximately 79,000 students. The University of London is a federation of institutions of various sizes. The largest of these are called Colleges and are like individual universities that have very considerable autonomy within the federation. The largest London Colleges, such as King's College, University College, and Imperial College, are each larger than many provincial Universities in the UK, and in many cases have higher academic standing. Within the University of London, the meaning of the word College is very different to the usual meaning in the United States. Lecturers at British Universities Lecturer is another word that has different meanings in Universities on different sides of the Atlantic. A Lecturer at a British University is roughly equivalent to an Assistant Professor at a top rate University in the United States. A Senior Lecturer at a British University is analogous to an Associate Professor at a North American University. The Schools of King's College London King's College London is subdivided into areas called Schools. Specifically, King's has Schools of Humanities (including Music), Laws, Medicine and Dentistry, Education, Life Sciences, and Physical Sciences and Engineering. Within these Schools some of the departments have outstanding international reputations for research and teaching. Standards have to be high at King's to justify the cost of operation in Central London. The School of Physical Sciences and Engineering includes Departments of Physics, Mathematics, Computing, Chemistry, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, as well as the Management Centre. The Physics and Chemistry Departments have a particularly strong historical record. For example, in the nineteenth century, James Clerk Maxwell, pioneer of electromagnetic theory, was a professor at King's. Wheatstone, inventor of the Wheatstone Bridge, and Daniell, inventor of the Daniell Cell, are further famous examples of pioneering scientists at King's. The Location of King's College London The Department of Computing is on the Strand Campus of King's, which is located beside the River Thames in the heart of central London, within walking distance of many of London's best theatres, art galleries, and concert halls. The Strand Campus is so-called because it is in the Strand, which is one of London's major streets, linking Trafalgar Square with St Paul's Cathedral via Fleet Street. Looking West along the River Thames from the Strand Campus there are good views of the Houses of Parliament. Looking East, Tower Bridge is plainly visible. The Strand Campus is within easy reach of other central Colleges and institutions of the University of London, and research collaboration between staff at different Colleges is practicable. Imperial College, University College, Queen Mary and Westfield College and Birkbeck College have strong Computer Science Departments and are within a few minutes travelling time from the Strand Campus of King's. The cost of living in London Accomodation is expensive in the London Area, and some members of staff of King's live at a considerable distance from the College and commute. Before applying for any job in Central London, it is advisable to obtain detailed and authoritative information about the cost of living.