Senior Research Associate / Research Fellow - Protecting Ordinary People from deepfakes - 0683-25

Senior Research Associate / Research Fellow – Protecting Ordinary People from deepfakes – 0683-25

Location: Bailrigg, Lancaster, UK

Salary: £39,355 to £55,755. Full time, Indefinite with End Date

Closing Date: Sunday 05 October 2025

Interview Date: Friday 24 October 2025

Reference: 0683-25

The Department of Psychology at Lancaster University is seeking to appoint one full time Senior Research Associate (grade 7) or Research Fellow (grade 8) to work on the Protecting Ordinary People from Deepfakes Project. We are looking for a software/machine learning engineer (or similar) to work in an interdisciplinary team reporting to Dr Sophie Nightingale (Principal Investigator). The project is funded by UKRI ESRC/EPSRC as part of Dr Nightingale’s Future Leaders Fellowship. The team will map and mitigate threats to ordinary people from deepfake technology and will develop a forensically assured verification system to address the illegal use of deepfake technology to commit violence against women and girls through non-consensual imagery. The successful candidate will manage the system and collaborate with partners to ensure usefulness, usability, trust, and sustainability.

Responsibilities:

• Lead or contribute to the development and day-to-day management of the verification system (initially using face recognition technology).
• Show excellence in software engineering and computational skills, including handling sensitive and confidential data.
• Work with the Principal Investigator and team to integrate experimental findings and theory to develop new tools and techniques.
• Engage in codesign with project partners, including police, the public, and charities.
• Lead dissemination activities and represent the project at conferences; engage with external partners and stakeholders (including media and public).

We are looking for someone with experience in:

• Software/machine learning engineering
• Automated data collection (crawling, scraping, parsing)
• Data management

About the Department: The Psychology Department is a busy teaching and research-active department with around 40 academic staff and a broad research portfolio. More information is available at http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk.

How to apply: Please upload a cover letter with your application and indicate whether you are applying for Senior Research Associate (grade 7) or Research Fellow (grade 8).

Miscellaneous: This is a full-time post, with ideally a November start date. The role is indefinite, subject to funding, currently available until November 2028. Informal inquiries to Dr Sophie Nightingale, Senior Lecturer, s.nightingale1@lancaster.ac.uk.

Equal Opportunity: The University recognises and celebrates good employment practice aimed at addressing inequality in higher education and promoting wellbeing for all colleagues. We welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of age, religion, gender identity or expression, race, disability or sexual orientation, and are committed to promoting diversity and equality of opportunity.