Job Description

LECTURER A / LECTURER B IN AUDIO ENGINEERING
University of Surrey
Location: Guildford
Salary: £38,592 to £51,805 gross per annum
Permanent position + benefits
Post Type: Full Time
Closing Date: 23.59 hours BST on Sunday 26 March 2023
Reference: 001023

We seek an outstanding, self-motivated Lecturer to contribute to the education of exceptional future audio engineers and musicians on the BMus/BSc Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister®) programme in the Department of Music and Sound Recording, and to conduct world-leading research.

The successful applicant will teach on the prestigious Tonmeister undergraduate programme as well as: organise and develop modules at undergraduate or postgraduate level; contribute to student recruitment; and conduct personal tutorials with students. The topics taught will depend on the profile of the successful applicant, but will include some of the following: audio engineering; audio signal processing; computer audio systems; electroacoustics; or sound synthesis. You will therefore have a good background in one or more of these topics at degree level, excellent administrative and organisation skills, and an ability to clearly explain topics related to audio engineering.

You will have the potential to develop and sustain research activities, with a clear vision for how your research will progress and an idea of how it might feed into or complement the Institute of Sound Recording’s (IoSR's) goals of engineering perceptually-motivated audio signal analysis, processing and control systems. You will be encouraged to develop your own research profile and to produce high-quality research outputs, including books, academic journal articles or other appropriate forms of research output.

You will be joining a supportive and varied team of colleagues drawn from both academic and respected industry backgrounds. The programme has a small cohort of high-quality students, enabling a highly collegiate environment between staff and students. Our students are highly motivated and have a strong background in music, mathematics and physics.

Running since 1970, the Tonmeister programme is unique in the way that it combines study of audio engineering, music, and practical sound recording. It has produced a stream of successful alumni, including winners of Oscars, Grammys, EMMYs, BAFTAs, and the Mercury Prize. Our graduates work across a wide cross-section of the audio industry, from product design to film music composition, and this alumnus network enables us to call upon current industry expertise in many areas. Alumni are very keen to give something back to the programme, and our reunions are excellent networking opportunities. The programme includes a Professional Training Year, and we have regular placements with many high-profile companies including Abbey Road Studios, Focusrite/Novation and Sky Post-Production.

Research in the IoSR focuses on human perception of audio quality and uses this focus to engineer perceptually-motivated signal analysis, processing and control systems. Our projects have been funded by EPSRC, the European Commission and industrial collaborators, involving human listening tests, acoustic measurement, statistical modelling and digital signal processing. Current work is, for example, developing efficient methods of generating artificial reverberation, optimising reproduced audio on headphones in the presence of external environment sound, and modelling timbral perception.

There is opportunity to collaborate with many groups across the University; previous and current projects involved the Department of Psychology, the Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP), the Surrey Institute for People-Centred Artificial Intelligence, and colleagues in Music.

The facilities available in the Department for teaching and research include: 3 recording studios containing high quality equipment including consoles from Studer and AMS-Neve; over 120 microphones for recording and technical measurement; an ITU-R BS 1116 standard listening room containing a 30-loudspeaker reproduction system; and a range of test and measurement hardware and software. The Department is home to the Moog Sound Lab UK, and benefits from many links with the audio, video and computer games industries. The University is has recently invested nearly £3m in new and updated facilities for the Department, including a new film and television production studio, new computing labs, and an electronics laboratory.

At Surrey, we are committed to providing an inclusive environment that offers equitable opportunities for all, in the pursuit of Surrey’s vision to be a leading global University. We work together to create a truly inclusive culture. We place great value on diversity and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. We are seeking to increase the diversity within our community and would particularly encourage applications from under-represented groups, such as women, people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and people with disabilities.

Potential applicants are encouraged to contact Dr. Russell Mason (r.mason@surrey.ac.uk) or Dr. Chris Mark (c.mark@surrey.ac.uk) for an informal discussion about the role.

Interviews are expected to be held on 21 April. To apply, go to https://jobs.surrey.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=001023

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