post-doc positions in Oxford and Cambridge

[Anuj Dawar <anuj.dawar@cl.cam.ac.uk>]

Two three-year post-doc positions in Semantics and Descriptive
Complexity at Oxford and Cambridge.

There are two post-doctoral research positions open, one at Oxford and
one at Cambridge, to work on a new EPSRC-funded project on "Resources
and co-Resources: A junction between semantics and descriptive
complexity" which is jointly led by Prof. Samson Abramsky FRS at
Oxford, and Prof. Anuj Dawar at the University of Cambridge.

The positions are available to start as soon as possible, and are
funded for 36 months.

The project seeks to explore ways in which methods from the study of
logic and algorithms (specifically finite model theory and descriptive
complexity) can be combined with methods from semantics (such as
category theory) to build a cohesive algebraic theory of
resources. This builds on recent work obtaining categorical accounts
of essential constructions in finite model theory (by Abramsky, Dawar
and Wang and Abramsky and Shah), as well as categorical accounts of
quantum resources (by Abramsky, Barbosa, de Silva and Zapata).  This
work made essential use of monads -- seen as encapsulating quantum and
other resources -- and of comonads, which encapsulate “coresources”,
i.e. ways of limiting access to a structure corresponding to
definability in various logics. The project will seek to apply these
new tools to major results in descriptive complexity, to expand them
to cover other important constructions, to find ways of combining
accounts of quantum resources and logical co-resources, and to build a
general theory of these.

There are separate application processes for applying for the two
positions.  Details of these and further information may be found at
these webpages:
  http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/news/1735-full.html
  http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/23436/

For further questions or enquiries, contact
  samson.abramsky@cs.ox.ac.uk or anuj.dawar@cl.cam.ac.uk


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