Postdoctoral Fellowship (05) at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

To make a leading contribution to PD-WATCH, a project funded through the Tay Health Tech Grand Challenge, focused on the development and clinical validation of a miniaturised, flexible wearable patch for continuous tremor monitoring in Parkinson’s disease. Working with Dr Anne Bernassau and Prof Marc Desmulliez, the PDRA will support hardware optimisation, data acquisition, machine-learning pipelines for tremor classification, and clinical validation in collaboration with NHS Lothian. 

The successful candidate will contribute to experimental design, data analysis, the preparation of publications, and support management of this interdisciplinary project. For appointment at Grade 7, significant experience in the areas listed below is required. The PD-WATCH project aims to develop wearable-based tremor assessment tools that can capture tremor severity, tremor subtype, and medication response in real-world settings, supporting future integration into NHS remote monitoring pathways.

The Biomedical and Astronomical Signal Processing (BASP) laboratory at Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh is recruiting a large multi-disciplinary team of postdoctoral researchers for the development of advanced computational imaging techniques and their cutting-edge applications in radio astronomy, space geodesy, and medical imaging. The start date is October 1 2026, or as soon as possible thereafter. 

BASP’s ethos  is to develop cutting-edge research on all aspects of computational imaging, from theory and algorithms, to applications in astronomy and medicine. 

Multiple positions are open in the context of the £4M research Fellowship TomoGrav awarded by the Royal Society to Dr Kazunori Akiyama (moving from MIT in March 2026 as an Associate Professor at Heriot-Watt) in partnership with Professor Yves Wiaux (head of BASP). 

TomoGrav ambitions leveraging cutting-edge AI to develop a computational imaging algorithm capable of an unprecedented regime of joint precision, robustness, efficiency, and scalability for image formation. The core application is dynamic black hole tomography with radio-interferometric telescope arrays such as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) and its proposed space-based Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) extension. The algorithm will be transferred to extreme-scale radio-interferometric imaging applications with SKA, to space-geodetic imaging for Earth reference frame determination, and fast dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in medicine. 

TomoGrav is supported by 10 world-renowned partners from across the world, whose combined expertise is second to none: Prof. Markoff (University of Cambridge), Dr Younsi (University College London), Prof. De Laurentis (University of Naples Federico II), and Dr Johnson (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian) bring unique expertise in black hole science; Prof. Pesquet (Université Paris-Saclay), Prof. Schönlieb (University of Cambridge), and Prof. Steidl (Technische Universität Berlin) are leading experts at the interface of machine learning and imaging science; Dr Breen (SKA Observatory), Dr Elosegui (MIT Haystack Observatory), and Dr van Heeswijk (Lausanne University Hospital) will support TomoGrav’s planned technology transfers to, respectively, SKA, space geodesy, and MRI. The partners will actively participate to the research and host the postdoctoral researchers for secondments. 

We are looking for a highly experienced and skilled PDRA who will work on the EU project AEROSUB “Automated Inspection Robots For Surface, Aerial And Underwater Substructures“. The PDRA is expected to have experience in the following topics: 

• Mechatronics design and development, 
• 3D CAD tools, 
• Motors, motor drivers, 
• Manufacturing and assembly of systems with unconventional mechanical parts, 
• Implementation of mechanical design, motor control, and electronics for robotic end-effectors, 
• Robotic manipulation, 
• Visual-servoing,
• Tele-operation 

The accepted candidate will work towards developing one or more robotic end effectors for cleaning of surfaces of underwater assets. The end-effector will be a part of a wholistic underwater mobile-manipulator system, composed of an underwater vehicle, an underwater robotic arm, and the control system. The main application will be cleaning biological fouling on underwater assets i) by rubbing and ii) by using water jets. Mechatronic design, development and integration of end-effectors will be studied in this position. 

This is an exciting project that addresses one of the most challenging extreme environment applications of robotic systems, namely underwater, and brings together in its consortium the top-level expertise in Europe from different disciplines (robotics, machine vision, AI, control, human-robot interaction, energy). It will provide a welcoming and collaborative environment to excel the young researchers in various and connected domains within a team of EU-wide experts. The underwater manipulation team at Heriot-Watt is a part of the new and exceptional multi-million pounds National Robotarium facility (https://www.hw.ac.uk/uk/research/the-national-robotarium.htm) bringing together academic research and industry in Heriot-Watt University campus and housing extremely impactful industry-oriented research. 

Candidates will have a strong interest and background in the above-cited topics with a PhD degree (having submitted their thesis), or equivalent experience. Strong competencies in design and development, robotics, mechatronics, and control are desirable.