Multiple opportunities available

November 26th, 2020

Interested in joining the team for an internship or a research project as part of your studies? If so, we’d love to hear from you so please get in touch with us!

We have multiple new project opportunities happening all year round, from short-term placements to PhD projects.

Below are a few project ideas that we are currently interested in exploring:

Evacuation modelling

  • Modelling evacuation in an environment impacted by smoke

This project will focus on developing a coupled simulation between an evacuation model and a smoke model, all within PiXIE. The evacuation part of the model is already available in PiXIE, so this work will be decomposed into two phases. Firstly, a smoke dispersion model will be implemented in PiXIE, taking advantage of the flexibility of the platform to simulate particle based systems. Secondly, the coupling between the two models will be considered.

This project would require a good understanding of fluid dynamics and some knowledge of computational fluid dynamics; coding experience in C++ and Python; and some knowledge of agent based modelling would be desirable but not essential.

  • Uncertainty quantification in evacuation models

We have done some initial work on this topic (see some info here) and this project will focus on addressing the remaining open questions on the relative effect of the input parameters in the outcome of an evacuation. This is a collaborative effort with CERFACS in France.

Disease Spread Modelling

  • Adding vaccination to the model to determine the best vaccination strategy to control the spread of a disease in a population

This is just one example of a possible extension of the SIR model, where some agents become more resistant to a virus due to vaccination. This project requires coding skills in C++ and Python.

  • Effectiveness of different prevention measures throughout the world during the COVID-19 pandemic

We have seen many different strategies adopted by different countries around the world to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that a large amount of data has become available, models can be used to assess the relative effectiveness of these strategies and help us be better prepared in the future.

This project will require collecting and curating a variety of data sources to build PiXIE models, run ensemble simulations, and perform statistical analysis on the outputs. A knowledge of basic statistics is therefore required, coding experience (especially in Python) is desirable but not essential.

Other applications

Think you might have an idea for applying PiXIE to a problem you’re interested in? Let us know!

Software development

If you are a software engineering student eager to apply your skills to help build an awesome scientific platform then we want to hear from you! We always have heaps of technical development in the pipeline, so there should be no shortage of opportunities for a motivated and talented student.

Some of the current needs include (this is definitely NOT an exhaustive list!):

    • Graphical user interface in a web-based environment. Come and help us port PiXIE to the web! Required skills are Javascript, Python, and some prior knowledge of web-based development.
    • GPU acceleration. We are currently developing a GPU version of PiXIE so if you have prior experience working with GPUs you might be able to contribute!
    • Development of new APIs. We have multiple needs for new APIs to make PiXIE even more versatile so if you have some experience in this area please get in touch.
    • And much more!