Applications are invited to undertake a PhD with Dr. Richard Kemp and Dr. David White, School of Psychology, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Applicants should have or expect to receive a first class Honours degree in Psychology or a cognate discipline.

The studentship is funded as part of an ARC Linkage project in collaboration with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia Passports). We are looking to offer either a 3 year PhD scholarship or additional top-up funding for students who have been awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award. We anticipate the student would start their PhD in early 2014.

The aim of the Linkage Project is to improve the ability to detect identity fraud in the passport issuance process by developing training and individual difference tests for users of face recognition software. It is anticipated that the PhD student will investigate theoretical aspects of unfamiliar face matching which will inform more applied aspects of the project. There may be some opportunities for the student to undertake some more applied work, and also to compare human and computer performance on face matching tasks. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) individual differences in face processing ability, correlates of face-matching expertise, and cognitive markers of familiarity.

Candidates should forward their CV and academic transcript to Dr. Richard Kemp or Dr David White. If you would like more background information please do not hesitate to contact us.