Research Technician – Biomedical Photonics
Heriot-Watt UniversityEdinburgh, Midlothian, United Kingdom, Scotland
Overview
This is a university role with Heriot-Watt University based in Edinburgh, Midlothian, United Kingdom. GovJobs has indexed this vacancy from its official source — use the apply button to view the full advert and apply directly.
Job description
Role Title: Research Technician – Biomedical Photonics
Grade and Salary: Grade 6, £31,236 - £36,636 per annum
FTE and working pattern: Full-time (35hrs per week); Fixed-term (6 months)
Reward and Benefits: 33 days annual leave, plus 9 buildings closed days for all full time staff. Use our total rewards calculator: https://www.hw.ac.uk/about/work/total-rewards-calculator.htm to see the value of benefits provided by Heriot-Watt University.
About our Team
Within the Photonics Instrumentation Group (PhI), and specifically the “TannerLab” sub group we exploit novel photonic techniques such as time resolved single photon technologies and optical fibre sensors to tackle clinical/biomedical challenges and other real world applications.
Our work is primarily experimental, developing measurement systems and principles, with theory and analysis to support this. We strongly collaborate with clinical practitioners in order to move those systems towards application.
Purpose of Role
This specific position is to support our ongoing project on NG Tube placement. This will be focussed on diffuse optical data analysis, optical phantom manufacture, and experimental data acquisition. This will use advanced detection techniques, such as time resolved imaging.
The role will be to support an existing PDRA in advancing testing and processing.
Due to the short term and ongoing project with strict time limits, this position is for someone with specific skills for rapid start and project progression.
Key Duties and Responsibilities
- Processing and analysing multi-dimensional time resolved photon counting data based on principles of diffuse optics.
- Developing algorithms to categorise the above in specific medical use cases.
- Manufacturing diffuse optical phantoms as a parallel to clinical models,
- Performing rigorous and systematic experiments to characterise optical phantoms.
- Working with optical systems to perform the above.
- Working with time resolved photon counting techniques, specifically SPAD arrays, for measurements in the above.
- Reporting on the above through written summaries for the team, and potential feeding in to formal documentation.
- Assisting in the day-to-day maintenance of the experimental facilities.
These are the criteria on which the short-listing and recruitment selection will be made.
Essential
- A degree in physics or engineering or related discipline.
- Direct experience operating optical systems for biological / medical application.
- Experience of experimental data acquisition or experimental system in relevant coding languages (e.g. Matlab / python)
- Experience of single photon counting techniques.
- A proven academic ability and a demonstrable high level of technical competence in experimental science and the analysis / modelling of the results.
- The ability to articulate research work, both in technical reports / papers and by oral presentation.
- The ability to work as part of a team on the experiments at Heriot-Watt and more widely with collaborators at other institutions.
Desirable
- Due to the short term and rapid start requirements, direct experience of diffuse time resolved photon counting experiments and data is highly desirable.
- Extensive experience in CMOS based SPAD array characterisation/optimisation, control and application to biophotonics.
- Diffusion model simulations
- Diffusive phantom fabrication
- Demonstrated experience in analysing data from the above.
How to apply
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This listing was last checked on 3 Aug 2026, 15:16. If the official advert has changed or closed, report it and we will review the listing.
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