King's College London

About Us

Applications are invited for the position of Post-Doctoral Research Associate as part of a Medical Research Council Funded Research proposal in the Research Department of Imaging Physics & Engineering, School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences (BMEIS) at King’s College London.  

This position is based at St Thomas’ Hospital with additional close links to King’s College Hospital. We therefore work directly at the interface of clinical and engineering research which provides valuable insight into the challenges and opportunities in acquiring and interpreting clinical data, offering exciting opportunities to perform truly translational research.

Cancer detection, diagnosis and clinical intervention can significantly increase chances of patient survival. However, current non-invasive imaging methods are unable to visualise the microvasculature associated with cancerous tumours deep in the body.

Recently developed super-resolution ultrasound (SR-US) imaging is gaining world-wide recognition due to its ability to achieve a resolution far beyond the conventional limit for ultrasound (US), allowing visualisation of micro-vascular structure and flow. SR-US also has potential to provide access to multiple new quantitative functional and morphological parameters that could be crucial for disease characterisation, monitoring and intervention.

Recent advances in US including ultrafast data acquisition and 2D array technology has provided fast volumetric data acquisition and imaging rates of thousands of frames per second in deep tissue, allowing opportunity to develop advanced 3D SR-US.

About the role

This is an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic researcher to develop state-of-the-art methodologies and quantification for super-resolution ultrasound imaging (SRUS) in 2D and 3D. This will require experiences in data acquisition and processing related to ultrasound imaging and contrast enhanced ultrasound. This aims to provide a reliable and repeatable clinical technique to extract quantitative microvascular information.

The purpose of the role is to design, develop, and perform experiments and to develop associated processing strategies for SRUS imaging. The PDRA will work closely with the Fellow on the project’s experimental and data acquisition aspects. This will involve designing, developing and performing experimental systems and acquisition protocols. The RA will assist with data curation and implementation of processing software. This will require computational skills, good knowledge of programming languages such as MATLAB, and an ability to plan experiments, make and record observations and test hypotheses. The candidate will propose and define strategies for extending the imaging strategies with a research system and programmable 2D matrix-array probe to allow 3D SRUS imaging. 

This is a full time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 31 October 2025.

About You

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. PhD in STEM subject *
2. Highly developed verbal and written communication skills in English (ranging from informal 1:1 discussions, formal presentations covering both oral and written skills), including the ability to liaise with staff at a range of levels internal and external to the organisation
3. Strong research background on a relevant field backed by published peer-reviewed work
4. Programming skills
5. Self-motivated and able to work independently
6. Experience with medical imaging
7. Evidence of collaborative work
8. Enthusiastic attitude and scientific approach to solving research problems.

* Please note that this is a PhD level role but candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs will be considered. In these circumstances the appointment will be made at Grade 5, spine point 30 with the title of Research Assistant. Upon confirmation of the award of the PhD, the job title will become Research Associate and the salary will increase to Grade 6.

Desirable criteria

1. Experience with ultrasound image analysis/research ultrasound systems
2. Experimental experience
3. Ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team with other engineers, scientists and clinicians
4. Experience with spatio-temporal data/time series/video analysis

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further Information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

As part of this commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and through this appointment process, it is our aim to develop candidate pools that include applicants from all backgrounds and communities.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

This post is subject to Occupational Health clearances.