Maynooth University Department of Computer Science

The Computer Vision Group was formed in 2001 within the Department of Computer Science at Maynooth University. With strengths in computer vision, image processing, machine learning, and robotics, over the years the group has been involved in projects in areas including facial expression analysis, intelligent vehicle systems, digital holographic image processing, and automatic sign language recognition. Since 2007 research within the lab has consolidated to focus on vision based advanced geotechnologies, developing new techniques for augmented reality, building facade extraction, visual place recognition, mobile mapping systems, visual simultaneous localisation and mapping, and dense mapping and reconstruction using RGBD sensors.

The group has participated in a number of national and international collaborative research projects principally funded through Science Foundation Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, the Irish Research Council, and the EU FP7 Programme. It is also part of StratAG, the SFI Strategic Research Cluster in Advanced Geotechnologies, and is a group within the Callan Institute.

Visit http://www.cs.nuim.ie/research/cvg/ for more information.

We are a research group based at the Department of Computer Science, National University of Ireland, Maynooth. The principal interest of this group is to carry out research in the areas of language and cognition with a specific focus on reading.  The main methodological tools we use are eye tracking studies and computational modelling.

Our website is http://www.cs.nuim.ie/research/cortex/site/

The Computer Science Education Research (CSER) group is interested in all aspects of CS Education including:

• First Year Experience
• Large Group Teaching
• Diversity
• Authentic Assessment
• Inclusive Teaching
• Novel Teaching Techniques
• Retention and Recruitment

Our goal is to enable ourselves and other interested researchers to embrace and improve their educational research methods and raise expectations and understanding of the importance of this type of research within the greater computing community.
The Computer Science Education Research Group hold regular meetings where we design and discuss research projects related to current activities in CS education.

Further information can be found at http://www.cs.nuim.ie/research/cser/

PRINCIPLES OF PROGRAMMING

Software permeates every aspect of our modern life. Thus, its failure ranges from minor inconvenience when your mobile phone crashes to the potential loss of life if, for example, the braking software in your car fails. In order for society to depend upon software in this way, we must do everything in our power to guarantee its reliability and its correctness.

At Maynooth University, we analyse and improve software by focusing on formal software development and analysis. To achieve this we use mathematical techniques to define and verify the correctness of our software. Our research improves the software development process through analysing the properties of existing software and by developing techniques that allow the prediction, and hence avoidance, of software failure. Our approach is complementary to the traditional approach to software development, where software is built first and tested later, going through a series of iterations, each improving its functionality and correctness.

We have many international research collaborators, particularly in the area of software development tools, where applications of our research are crucial to those developing safety-critical software. We co-ordinate international Masters-level education in this field and are also heavily involved in co-ordinating program verification competitions, where researchers evaluate tools that we use to construct and improve software.

You can find further information on the Principles of Programming Research group by visiting the website at http://www.cs.nuim.ie/research/pop/index.html

The Callan Institute is focussed on the use of information, computing and communications technologies to address challenges arising from our increasingly complex world - our communications and technology driven enviroment and the impact on our personal lives. The Institute's area of expertise is in electronic and software systems, wireless communications and in data mining, knowledge extraction and cognition. As a group, we wish to blend focussed basic research with a systems perspective that drives cross-disciplinary developments, essential in tackling the new challenges arising from the need for a more sustainable, knowledge-driven society. 

More information is available here 

Location Based Services for environmental monitoring and public information systems; Transport information systems; Public transport tracking, monitoring and analysis software; Journey planners optimised on multiple criteria; Passenger information systems; graphics recognition using shape, context, and Statistical Language Modelling for recognition and validation of graphical objects; electric vehicle control systems.

Visit http://www.cs.nuim.ie/research/igs/ for further information

COMPUTATIONAL INFORMATION THEORY
 
Patterns of information and activity are all around us - from the DNA inside our cells to the fluctuations of the stock market and the way our brains process inputs. 
 
In the Computational Information Theory Group at Maynooth University we are using computational techniques to separate useful signals from background noise and gaining insights into the fundamental nature of reality. 
 
We have a particular interest in the nature of information and the causal relationships between objects and in extracting useful information from complex systems. DNA and the brain are two examples where we seek to understand the logical depth of these complex biological structures. 
 
Our research also looks at the randomness of financial markets, and we are developing applications in the areas of computational econometrics and behavioural economics.
 
By looking at how information is organised and processed and applying mathematical tools and theories of computation, we can further the understanding of these complex real-world structures and behaviours.

More information is available here

The Music and Sound  Technology Research Group

Technology and music are natural companions, and the evolution of digital technology has radically expanded the options for musicians, music producers and sound engineers. 

Today you can synthesise an almost endless array of tones and instruments, and you might be playing an iPad rather than a piano, but in order to work effectively and sound aesthetically pleasing, the signal must be appropriately processed.
The Sound and Digital Music Technology Group at Maynooth University has been active since 2000 and develops digital audio signal processing technology and algorithms that can be applied to music synthesis and analysis. 

Through national and international collaborations our research is exploring how to model and modify audio signals such as music and speech, build software-based instruments and novel auditory analysis applications. 

Please CLICK HERE to go to our website

Introduction
The postgraduate community in the Department of Computer Science is central to our research, and we are committed to expanding the department's role in attracting and graduating high-quality researchers. We're looking for bright students who have achieved high marks in their undergraduate degree. This is typically a first-class honours in Computer Science or a closely-related discipline, although students with a second class honours primary degree can also be considered. Typically, a research MSc. takes between one and two years, and a PhD. takes three or four years. A student will usually register for an MSc. initially, and can then transfer to the PhD. register after a year, based upon satisfactory progress. At present our research degrees do not involve coursework.
How to Apply
The first step is to identify a potential supervisor. This involves deciding on a general research area that you're interested in, and to contact a member of the department's staff that's working in that area. The best approach is to look through the staff web pages and the list of Research Groups/Projects in the department.
When you have identified a member of staff that is a potential supervisor, you should email him or her: tell them a little bit about your background and what you're interested in researching. Establishing a dialogue with a potential supervisor is an essential first step; the staff member will then be able to guide you through the rest of the process.
 
Financial Assistance
Research postgraduates are typically (though not exclusively) funded during their research. Support varies depending on the source, but at best, funding can include payment of fees, a salary and travel expenses. Note that all funding programmes are highly competitive, and most are contingent on the applicant securing high marks in their primary degree.
There are four main possibilities for funding:A staff member may have secured funding themselves; usually this varies considerably from one person to the next, and from one year to the next. Typically many of us will be seeking funding throughout the year, and so the exact state of funding may not be clear until late Spring. 
You can get funding yourself, through the national IRCSET/Embark programme. This is more student-oriented, and is quite competitive - you'd need to be at or near the top of your class. Some details are on the IRCSET main page. IRCSET usually invite applications in Jan/Feb, with results in late March. The ideal would be for you to have contacted a potential supervisor by then, and to seek their advice when filling out the application. 
Maynooth University  runs its own funding programme; more details on this are available from the Maynooth University  Graduate Studies web page. 
In certain situations, local authorities in Ireland may pay postgraduate fees and/or provide maintenance support. One good indication might be if they have provided support for your undergraduate degree. This is essentially external to us, so you should contact your own local authority directly to see if there are any opportunities.Closing Date
Applications for entry to the Ph.D. programme may be made at any time but, as we mentioned above, your potential supervisor will be able to guide you through this. The academic year starts in September, and if you're thinking of a research degree, you should contact a potential supervisor as soon as possible to maximise you chance of getting funding.
Enquiries
For further information, you can contact John McDonald, who is the research postgraduate coordinator for the Department of Computer Science.
More information is also available from the  Maynooth University  Graduate Studies web page. 

Our research group carries out fundamental research on molecular computers: collections molecules in a test tube that compute by bumping into each other and executing logical statements. Our focus is on both the underlying computational theory and practical implementation in the lab. Our team is multidisciplinary, we prove theorems about models of computation, we make designs using software/whiteboards, and we implement our designs in the wet-lab using artificially-synthesised DNA molecules!

We are often looking to hire undergrads for 4-6 month research projects, as well as PhD students and, from time-to-time, postdocs and technicians.

See our research group's webpage for more info.