Research Fellow in Sensor Systems and Medical Devices

The Bioelectronics group at UCL's Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to join a flagship EPSRC-funded project led by Dr Yu Wu. This is a rare opportunity to work across the complete development chain of a medical device: from designing the sensors, through the readout electronics and data analysis, to integrating the system with robotic platforms. The project is carried out in close collaboration with clinicians, with the aim of bringing the technology into real clinical use.

You will lead the hardware and circuit system development of the project, turning designs into working proof-of-concept prototypes, and you will take these prototypes into user testing, including developing the test protocols and obtaining ethics approval. We are looking for a researcher who wants to create new devices and use them to discover new things: for example, identifying new clinical metrics from sensor data, and using them to evaluate treatments or find ways to improve them. Please see the attached job description for further details about the duties and responsibilities of the role.

The post is available for 6 months in the first instance. Further funding to support the post may be available.

Applicants should have a PhD (awarded or imminent) in Electronic/Electrical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering or a closely related discipline, with a research focus on circuits, sensors, instrumentation or medical devices.

You should have a proven track record in building electronic hardware and circuit systems, including taking at least one system from concept and circuit design through PCB design and fabrication to a working proof-of-concept prototype. The successful candidate will be proficienct in schematic capture and PCB layout tools (e.g. Altium Designer, KiCad, OrCAD/Allegro), with hands-on experience of board assembly, bring-up and debugging using standard laboratory instruments. They will have experience of embedded systems programming (e.g. C/C++ on microcontrollers) for data acquisition and device control. You should have solid knowledge of analogue and mixed-signal circuit design for sensor interfacing and readout (e.g. low-noise amplifiers, filters, ADCs, sensor biasing and excitation).

Experience in developing medical devices or wearable/implantable sensing systems, and awareness of relevant standards and regulations (e.g. ISO 13485, ISO 14971, IEC 60601, UK MDR) is desirable, as well as experience of applying signal processing or machine learning methods to physiological or sensor data.

If the successful candidate has not yet been awarded their PhD, appointment will be made as a Research Assistant (Grade 6B). Payment at Grade 7 will be backdated to the date of final submission of the PhD thesis including corrections, once the PhD has been awarded.

As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong.

We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce. These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.

Our department holds an Athena SWAN Silver award, in recognition of our commitment to advancing gender equality.